LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

dopijrig^ If a. 

Shelf .:Dc.£h 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



JUST PUBLISHED- 



The Modern flachinist, 

By JOHN T. USHER, Machinist. 



PRICE, - S2.SO. 

Specially Adapted to the Use of Machinists, Apprentices, 
Designers, Engineers and Constructors. 



A practical treatise embracing the most approved methods of modern machine-shop practice, 
embracing the applications of recent improved appliances, tools, and devices for facilitating, duplicating, 
and expediting the construction of machines and their parts. 

A NEW BOOK FROn COVER TO COVER. 

Every illustration in this book represents a new device in machine-shop 
practice, and the engravings have been made specially for it. 



8vo. 322 Pages. 257 Illustrations. Price, $2.50. 



What is said of " The Modern Machinist." 

This is a new work of merit. It is on " Modern Machine Shop Methods," as its name implies. 
It is thoroughly up to date, was written by one of the best-known and progressive machinists of the day, 
is the modern exponent of the science, and all its subjects are treated according to latest developments. 
In short, the book is new from cover to to cover, and is one that every machinist, apprentice, designer, 
engineer, or constructor should possess. — Scientific Machinist, July 15th, 1895. 

This book is the most complete treatise of its kind that has yet come under our observation, and 
contains all that is most modern and approved and of the highest efficiency in. machine-shop practice, 
etc., etc. — Age of Steel, June, 1895. 

There is nothing experimental or visionary about this book, all devices being in actual use and 
giving good results. It might perhaps be called a compendium of shop methods, showing a variety of 
special tools and appliances which will give new ideas to many mechanics, from 4he superintendent to 
the man at the bench. It will be found a valuable addition to any library, and will be consulted 
Whenever a new or difficult job is to be done.— Machinery, July, 1895. 



NORMAN W. HENLEY & CO., publishers, 
132 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 

Copies of the above sent prepaid on receipt of price. 



SHOP KINKS 

AND 

MACHINE-SHOP CHAT: 

A SERIES OF 
OVER FIVE HUNDRED PRACTICAL PARAGRAPHS 



In familiar language, showing special ways of doing 

work better, more cheaply and more 

rapidly than usual. 

By ROBERT GRIMSHAW, M.E., etc. 



WITH 222 ENGRAVINGS. 



Nrw York : 
NORMAN W. HENLEY & CO. 

132 Nassau Street. 








Copyrighted, 1896, 
By ROBERT GRIMSHAW. 




PREFACE. 

About thirty years ago, on entering one of our princi- 
pal iron ship and engine building works, my chief 
suggested that I keep a note-book or its equivalent. 
This advice was at once accepted, with advantage to my- 
self, and I hope to others also. The practice has been 
kept up throughout a very busy life, passed in touch with 
important industrial establishments in the United States, 
Canada, and Europe, and with engineers, machinists, and 
scientists whose acquaintance (and in some instances 
friendship) I acknowledge as a rare privilege. 

During a large portion of this time I have contributed 
editorially and over my own signature and various ' ' pen- 
names ' ' to the principal practical journals in English 
and French, and more recently in German, on both sides 
of the Atlantic. The favorable reception accorded my 
published articles and books emboldens me to produce 
this volume. Its over 500 separate items consist not only 



of my own and others ' widely-scattered items from tech- 
nical journals, notably Mechanics, Machinery, and the 
American Machinist (named in order of extent of 
my indebtedness), but of material either gathered from 
visits to well-known shops, or based on data contributed 
by leading machine-tool builders and users. To these 
latter I have given due credit not only in appropriate 
places in the body of the book, but in a special list on 
page 7 ; and hereby again extend my thanks. 

The book was at first proposed under the name ' ' Ma- 
chine-Shop Chat ' ' ; but the large proportion of ' ' kinks ' ' 
and " wrinkles " therein illustrated or referred to 
warrants the change to the present title. 

As " shop kinks " and " wrinkles" will always interest 
me, I hope that my readers will favor me with short 
sketches and descriptions concerning their own and 
others' practice, especially for unusual work and in 
emergencies. 

Robert Grimshaw, 

January, 1896. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 

I acknowledge, with thanks, my indebtedness to 
the following establishments for " shop kinks 1 ' : 



T. R. Almond, 

Atlantic Works, 

Baldwin Locomotive Woi'ks, 

fiement & Miles Co., 

Hugo Bilgram, 

H. Bollinckx, 

Brown & Porter, 

Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co., . 

Cleveland Twist Drill Co., 

Coffin & Leightou , 

Colt Fire Arms Co., 

Geo. V. Cresson, 

Delamater Iron Works, 

Dickson Mfg. Co., . 

Ferracute Machine Works, 

Freeland Works, 

H. Griison, 

Hancock Inspirator Co., 

Hartford Steam Engineering Co 

Hewes & Phillips, . 

R. Hoe& Co., . 

Geo. C. Howard, 

E. Harrington & Sons, 

Dane & Bodley Co., 

Leland & Faulconer, 

Lockwood Mfg. Co., 

Mennig Freres, 

Morris, Tasker & Co. , 

N. Y S. & W. R'y, 

Pennsj'lvania R. R., 

A. Piat, 

D. W. Pond Co., 

J. Morton Poole & Co., 

Pratt & Whitney Co., 

P. Pryibil, 

Pusey & Jones Co. , 

Riehle Bros. Testing Mch. Co., 

William Sellers & Co., 

Smith & Coventry, 

Standard Tool Co. 

Straight Dine Engine Co., 

Westinghouse Machine Co., 

S. A. Woods Co., 

Yale & Towne Mfg. Co. 



Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Brussels, Belgium. 
Diverpool, Eng. 
Providence, R. I. 
Cleveland, Ohio. 
Syracuse, N. Y. 
Hai'tford, Conn. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
New York, N. Y. 
Scranton, Pa. 
Bridget on, N. J. 
New York, N. Y. 
Buckau, Germany 
Boston, Mass. 
Hartford, Conn. 
Newark, N. J. 
New York, N. Y. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 
Detroit, Mich. 
New York, N. Y. 
Brussels, Belgium. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Sj^racuse, N. Y. 
Altoona, Pa. 
Paris, France. 
Worcester, Mass. 
Wilmington, Del. 
Hartford, Conn. 
New York, N. Y. 
Wilmington, Del. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Manchester, Eng. 
Athol, Mass. 
Syracuse, N. Y. 
Pittsburg, Pa. 
Boston, Mass. 
Stamford, Conn. 



SHOP KINKS 

AND 

MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



«« The Poor Old Lathe." I was talking the other 
day with a locomotive builder who was greatly criti- 
cising the crossheads on a certain road because they 
were of the Laird type ; that is, there was one heavy 
guide-bar above the piston-rod, and the crosshead 
played on that. The objection was and is, that the 
thing is not in line ; that there is a tendency for the 
crosshead to be twisted fore and aft at every to-and- 
fro stroke, bending the piston-rod ; and the greater 
the wear of slide and guide-bar, the greater this 
tendency and its effect. 

The very same criticism applies to the average 
engine-lathe with only one feed-screw to the carriage ; 
and the very same trouble results as soon as there is 
wear. But with two feed-screws, one at each side, and 
each of which should be reversible, the carriage 
would be fed along squarely ; and if the lathe had 
only one leg at the tail-stock end, as long ago pro- 
posed by Prof. Sweet, it would stand square on any 
kind of a floor and not twist the bed. 

Lathe-Speed Regulator. I am much pleased with 
a device at Norcross's, to keep the speed of a lathe 
uniform, no matter what the diameter of the piece 



io SHOP KINKS AND 

being turned. As it is, on ordinary lathes, when the 
tool is working far from the center (say on a cylin- 
der head or other disk-shaped piece), the cutting- 
speed is greater than when it is working close to the 
center ; and it is evident that, especially on large 
pieces, if the lathe is geared so as to give the proper 
cutting-speed (which is the maximum for that 
material, so as to get the most work per hour out of 
the lathe), when the tool is at or near the axial line, 
the speed will be too great when the tool is working 
further out, and may be ruinous when at the edge of 
a piece of large diameter. On a piece eighteen 
inches in diameter, if the speed is right when work- 
ing one inch from the center, the average speed will 
be five times too great, and the maximum speed nine 
times too great, which would be ruinous to the tool. 

If we get at it the other way and to prevent injury 
to the tool, and improper work, make the cutting 
speed right for the periphery of the 1 8-inch disk, the 
average speed, which will represent an approxima- 
tion to the capacity of the lathe, will be only one- 
fifth as high as it should be, and the speed at one 
inch from the center will be one-ninth of what it 
should be. That sort of thing may be very satisfac- 
tory from the standpoint of preserving the tool-points, 
but it does not help along the capacity of the shop to 
get work done, nor aid in satisfying customers who 
(as most of them do) want their work in a hurry. 

If, however, we have a belt-shifting device consist- 
ing of two horizontal belt-cones placed almost in con- 
tact, the head of one opposed to the foot of the other, 
and a space between them rather less than the thick- 
ness of an endless rubber belt having a length rather 
more than the greatest circumference of the cone 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



ii 



about which it wraps, rotation of one cone (by 
"cone" I mean straight-sided conical frustum, not 
stepped pulley) will cause rotation of the other ; and 
sliding the belt along from one point in the length of 
the two cones to another will vary and, even if 
desired, reverse the velocity-ratio. If the belt be em- 
braced by the prongs of a shipper which engages in 
an advancing spiral parallel with the cones, rotation 
of the spiral will cause variation of the velocity-ratio ; 




Fig. i. — Lathe-Speed Regulator (Brown & Sharpe). 

and if the spiral be specially designed with irregular 
pitch, any desired rate of change of the velocity-ratio 
between the two cones may be obtained. If the 
driven cone be belted to the lathe-gearing, and the 
prong which engages in the advancing spiral be 
attached to a piece which bears against the tool, or 
the tool-post, or the cross-slide, the motion of the 
tool outwards from the center may be made to cause 
decrease of the speed of the driven cone, so that when 
the tool is working on the large diameter the cutting 



12 SHOP KINKS AND 

speed may be kept just the same as when it is work- 
ing on the small diameter. Figure i shows this most 
satisfactorily ; the piece leading to the machine being 
shown cut off. 

Lead=Screw Wear. The trouble with your lathe is 
that it has been doing right-handed work for years 
and years, cutting right-handed threads ; and as the 
wear has taken place on only one side of the lead- 
screw its pitch has been increased since you first got 
it. Further, it has been used most at the end nearest 
the live center, and is most worn there ; and as the 
Wear increases the screw will have not only too great 
a pitch, all along that part of the screw which has 
been used, but an irregular excess which cannot be 
calculated for or allowed for. If it was arranged so 
that you could turn it end for end every now and 
then, you would at least have the error caused by 
and upon short work lessened and divided between 
the two ends ; but for all that the pitch would not be 
true. The next time you get a lathe of such a con- 
struction, if you do ever get one just like it, better 
do your general screw-cutting on one end, and for 
special work requiring to be very correct, use the 
other end. Then if you want you can keep the wear 
from coming on only one side of the screw, not by 
cutting left-handed screws, but putting a pulley at 
the tail of the lathe and by a cord attached to the 
carriage at one end and a weight at the other making 
the carriage drag the screw instead of the screw 
pushing the carriage. This will put some of the wear 
on the left side of the threads instead of the right, 
even in cutting right-hand threads. You may say 
that every time the carriage is brought back there is a 
pressure put upon the other side of the screw-threads, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 13 

but in reply to this I may say that on the back travel 
there is no pressure as during the cut. 

Enough care is seldom taken with the lubrication 
of lead-screws ; all the bearings may get enough oil 
and of the right kind, but the screw is left to collect 
lint and fine fillings and dirt that may drop or float 
that way, and is too seldom wiped clean with waste 
and given proper oil in liberal quantities. The bear- 
ings may be restored to truth so much more easily 
than the lead-screw, and wear and damage done to 
them is so much less injurious to the machine and to 
the work done on it, that it is a wonder that machin- 
ists pay so little attention below the shears. 

Facing-Lathes should at least do facing rapidly 
and well, yet on most of them we find the cross-feed 
screw so fine that the work is hampered and the 
owner of the lathe handicapped. In the Ferracute 
Works there is a lathe built principally for facing, 
that is like the "protection that protects" ; that is 
it faces ; the cross-screw having a very coarse pitch that 
carries the tool across at a great rate when desired, 
while of course any needed degree of slowness may 
be obtained by hand. 

Lathe-Center Spindles. There is no use in trying 
to do good work with improper tools. The lathe is 
a tool which can do good work when it is in proper 
order and is properly used ; but if the ways are un- 
true and the lead-screw worn, or the center soft and 
out of true, the production of good work will be 
more by good luck than by good management ; and 
in many instances might be classed among modern 
miracles. 

If the lathe-center is soft it will be apt to get bent, 



14 



SHOP KINKS AND 



bruised and indented, no matter how careful the 
workman is. Hardened centers very seldom get out 
of true even with heavy work or heavy cut. They 
also do truer work than soft ones. Of course they 




N$ 



Fig. 2 — Grinding Lathe-Center Spindles. 

require grinding once in a while tc ka"p them in 
perfect shape ; but this is easily done, as for instance 
by such a lathe-center grinder as that of which I 
show a top view in Figure 2. 




Fig. 3. — Lathe-Center Grinder. 

In order to operate it, the bar A is placed loosely 
in the tool-post, and the machine placed on the lathe- 
centers as at BB, screwing the tail-slide firmly. The 
fall-rest or tool-blocking is adjusted until the bar A 
rests squarely upon it. Then the tail-post screw is 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



15 



screwed up, the tail-slide withdrawn, and the lathe- 
carriage moved until the machine is in a position 
similar to C in Figure 4. D is a rubber pulley 
which is placed on the smallest step ; and the lathe 
may then be run backwards with or without the 
back-gears, as is preferred. The cut of a fly-wheel 
is adjusted by the cross-slide handles of the lathe. 




Fig. 4. — Grinding Lathe-Center Spindles. 

The wheel is moved across the surface of the center 
by the handle E. The adjustment F provides for 
different sized lathes. 

The advantage of this machine is that it is entirely 
self-contained, requiring no belts to connect with the 
countershaft or cone of the lathe ; there is no crank 
to be turned by hand. Its spindle is ground true, 
straight and round. 

Figure 3 shows the general construction of the 



i6 



SHOP KINKS AND 



machine and its relative position to the lathe- center 
when it is ready to grind. 

Lathe=Centers made like Figure 5 have the ad- 
vantage of doing away with the difficulty in turning 
up the center, by reason of the difference in cutting- 
speed at the point and the full diameter of the taper. 
Figure 6 shows the same thing on a center cut away 
on one side to admit a chaser close to the center ; 
and Figure 7 the same idea applied to milling- 





Fig. 5. — Lathe-Center. 



Fig. 6. — Center Cut away 
on One Side. 



V 




A 

a 



Fig. 7. — Milling-Center. 



Fig. 8. — Lathe-Center for 
Heavy Work. 



centers. Figure 8 shows a form for heavy lathe- 
work ; having an oil-hole A pierced to the center and 
carried to the point as shown by the dotted lines ; an 
oil groove B being cut at the bottom so that the 
center need not be slacked back in order to oil it. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



i7 



Lathe=Centers for Heavy Work. It is said that the 
best outline of mold-board for plows for any given 
soil is that shown after a plow of almost any kind 
has been driven through that soil and noting the 
surface produced by the material which clings to the 




Fig. 9 — Old Centers Worn to Best Shape for Resistance. 

mold-board. Where the clay remains thick on the 
board is where the metal should be highest. On the 
same principle, perhaps the proper form of lathe- 
center for heavy work would be that produced by 




Fig. 10. 



-Work-Center made with Sledge and Set- Punch after 
Drilling. 



running a cone center for years with such work, and 
noting the shape into which it got. 

An old correspondent of Mechanics states that this 
form is about as shown in Figure 9, which we may 
call the center worn to the best shape for resistance, 



i8 



SHOP KINKS AND 



and from this he deduces as the best form to make 
one with an angle of 8o°, terminated in a rounded end 
which is part of a |-inch ball ; the hole in the shaft is 
to be drilled i-inch diameter, chipped part way 
out to the shape of the center, and finished with 
a sledge and set-punch to the same shape as the 
center. The swaging hardens the walls of the 
hole. Then with a very narrow cape chisel 
three evenly-spaced grooves are to be cut from the 
outside to the center, and the drilled hole at the 
bottom should be opened a little with a small center- 
punch. 

Lathe=Centers for Cutting Off. Where there is 
much cutting off to be done, it may be well to have 
the lathe-centers formed as shown in Figure 1 1 ; there 




Fig. ii. — Lathe-Center for Cutting Off. 

being a cylindrical extension with coned point which 
will permit the cutting-off tool to pass between the 
center and the work, without leaving any burr. 

Centers for Coned or Tubular Work. Figures 12 and 
13 show a dead center used by the Lockwood Manu- 
facturing Company to prevent wearing at the mouth 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



19 



of the hole in the work without using a plug. A is 
a stem fitting into the tail-stock spindle, having a 
collar B and carrying the loose cone G while the 
stem itself is coned at D, in the same line with C. 
The work is supported on the loose cone C. At E 
is a rawhide washer to prevent cutting on the flat 




Figs. 12 and 13. 



-Center for Coned or Tubular Work, 
(lockwoods.) 



surfaces. The pin F is one-half of its cross-section 
in C, and the other is a semicircular groove in the 
stem of A. G is a spiral oil-groove passing along the 
top of A ) thence up through the collar £, so that the 
rawhide washer E, the pin F and the bore of the cone 
C may all be lubricated through one oil-hole. 

Centering is the most important step in lathe- 
work ; end-squaring being next. In light work, after 




Fig. 14.— Centering Lathe-Work. 

drilling in the center — say with a A-inch drill — the 
center may be made with a tool such as is shown in 



20 



SHOP KINKS AND 



Figure 14 ; the angle being from 6o° to 70 or even 
75 . Such a tool will make a cone that will fit the 
lathe-center loosely on the inside and hence be apt 
to keep oiled. A trifle more than half the side of 
the cone should be cut away and a flat face left. 

This will not do for heavy work. 

Work=Centers. There are right ways and wrong' 
ways to do most things; and work-centers and lathe- 




Fig. 15. — ' Botchman's Favorite." — Wrong. 

centers are no exceptions. What the Leland and 
Faulconer Co. calls "John Botchman's favorite" is 




Fig. 16. — Botchman's Center and Arbor. — Wrong. 

shown in Figure 15 ; the lathe-center being about 90 
and the reamed center of the arbor or shaft about 6o°. 
This gives a ring of contact, only, at A, so that the 
lathe-center, if soft, is ringed at that point, and if 
hard the work continually shifts. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



Another of his favorites is that shown in Figure 
1 6 ; and this is if possible worse than the last one. 
Here the work-center is of greater angle than the 
lathe-center, and here, also, there is only a ring of 
contact. 




A 

Fig. 17. — "Botchman's Delight" — Wrong. 

Figure 17 is the Botchman's delight. The angle 
of the lathe-center and of the work-center are about 
the same, and as no care is taken that the lathe- 
center fills the work-center, there is considerable 
wobble, rendering concentric work practically impos- 




Fig. 18. — Another Wrong Way. 

sible. The drilled hole in the work will in this case 
afford an excellent reservoir for chips, and if the 
lathe-center is soft, this latter will be very nicely 
worn. 



SHOP KINKS AND 



Figure 18 shows another favorite way of centering 
in botch shops. The work-center is made with a 
center-punch. It may be in the true center, or it 
may be somewhere near it ; it may be truly axial, 
or it may be out of line. In either case it has not 




Fig. 19. — Still Another Wrong Way. 

the same angle as the lathe-center. There is no 
center-drilled portion — thus effecting a saving in 
small center-drills. Figure 19 shows another im- 
proper method. 




Fig. 20. — Right Way to Make Arbor and Center. 

Figure 20 shows the proper way to make both 
the lathe- center and the work-center. The former 
is exactly 6o°, being hardened and ground. The 
latter is also exactly 6o°, as is known by its being 
reamed with the center-reamer shown in Figure 42. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



23 



The point of the lathe-center is protected by the 
center- drilled portion of the work-center ; but no chips 
can get in here. 

Preserving Arbor=Centers. In the Pryibil shops, 
instead of the usual double countersink, they make 




Fig. 21. — Preserving Arbor-Centers. 

arbor-centers as shown in Figure 2 1 , putting babbitt 
metal at B. 

Boring Tapers in the lathe may be facilitated by 
giving the boring-bar a ball center comprising about 
two-thirds of the diameter of the sphere, held on to 
the bar by a cap on the end of the latter, and having 
in it a countersunk and deep-drilled work-center. 
With such an arrangement the bar-centers cannot 
wear out of truth by setting it over. 

Testing Lathe=Centers. Never assume that they 
are true. Test them. One way is to make a plain disk 
say ten inches in diameter and T V-inch thick with a 
T Vinch center-hole straight through it. This, if 
placed on the centers of the lathe when the latter 
are not in truth, will magnify the error and enable 
accurate adjustment to be made. 

Again you want to find out whether the live- 
center and the tail-center of that lathe are in perfect 
alignment now that that piece is chucked. Well, if 



24 



SHOP KINKS AND 



you will take a piece of iron that will reach from the 
tail-center to some point on the outer part of the 
object that is chucked, and will make a cone center 
in one end of it and put that on the tail-center and 
let the other end touch the face of the object at some 
point, scribing that point, and will then turn the 
lathe 90° and see whether the end of the gage-piece 
strikes it at the same distance from the live-center, 
and will then turn through the other quarters in the 
same way, you can find out what you want to 
know. If the radial distance is the same in all cases 
the centers are all right ; but if the gage reaches 
further out at one quarter-position than at the other, 
they are not, and you will have to make them so 
before you go on with the work. 

A Good Alignment=Gage for a lathe may be made by 
taking an iron bar half as long as the diameter of the 




Fig. 22. — Good Alignment-Gage. 

face-plate, and having at one end an enlargement in 
its width, in which there is a small cylindrical hole 



MA CHINE SHOP CHA T. 25 

bored through and then countersunk from both sides, 
not letting the two countersinks meet. If this is 
put to the centers so that one projects into each 
countersink without their points meeting, the bar will 
stand at a certain distance from the face-plate ; this 
distance being measured, and the bar turned about so 
as to make first 90 , then 180 , and then 2 70 °, from the 
first position, the distance of its face from that of the 
plate should be the same in all four positions. If they 
are not, the lathe is out of line ; and if they are, it is 
all right in that respect. (See Figure 22). 

Aligning Engine=Lathes is done in the Pond Works 
by having on the face of the face-plate and near its 
perimeter two steps ; then in place of the dead center 
there is a stud carrying an arm to which there is at- 
tached a scriber as on a surface-gage. This scriber 
(which is curved at one end and parallel with the 
lathe-centers at the other, and may be turned end for 
end) is adjusted so as to touch the top of one of the 
steps on the face-plate ; then it is swung around 180 . 
If it touches the same step at the same point in its 
width, the tail-stock is of the right hight. Bringing 
it to the quarter-points will also show whether or not 
the tail-stock is set right sidewise. Reversing the 
needle and bringing it so that it touches the face of 
one of the steps on the face-plate, if it just touches 
at top and bottom as well as at the two sides, the 
tail-spindle is in line. The larger the face-plate the 
more readily the error may be found. 

Handy Lathe=Ckuck. For drilling holes radially 
in a cylindrical bar, where they all must meet in the 
center and be accurately spaced, in place of the dead 
center, there is inserted in the tail-spindle of the 
lathe a chuck having its end provided with V grooves 



26 SHOP KINKS AND 

which are made true with the line of centers of the 
lathe, so that when the work is laid in them they will 
be held true. It may be well to have two grooves, 
one for large and one for small work, so that the side 
of the shaft to be drilled will not pass within the 
fork. 

Setting a Lathe Parallel. After doing taper work 
it is sometimes difficult to bring the lathe quickly 
back for parallel turning ; particularly where the 
tail- stock does not rest on V's and is a loose fit 
between the ways. If the work to be turned parallel 
is already roughed out parallel, the setting may be 
facilitated by bringing the point of a pointed tool 
against the work, and winding the slide-rest along. 
If the work is not already roughed out parallel, a 
parallel mandrel may be set in the lathe first and this 
test applied to it. 

Backing off riillirig=Cutters is an operation which 
is as troublesome as it is necessary, under the ordi- 
nary methods of working, and with the usual appli- 
ances about the average machine shop. A device 
for doing this properly and with no trouble is so 
constructed that it is only necessary to place the 
cutter on an arbor in the ordinary lathe, in the usual 
way, to put the arbor on the lathe-centers with a 
driving-pin in the slot in the face-plate, start the 
lathe and feed in the tool by the cross-feed screw as 
in a plain job of turning. 

Referring to Figure 23, the forming tool Tis held 
in the tool-post in the usual way ; the cutter is borne 
by a sleeve turning on an arbor which has centers 
slightly eccentric, i. e., as the arbor turns in the 
lathe upon the centers it has an eccentric motion of 
the required play necessary to give the cutter a 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 27 

motion to and from the tool by which it is backed 
off. This arbor .4 turns freely within the sleeve B 
upon which the cutter is placed, and while the arbor 
turns with the lathe, being driven direct by the lever 
L and driver D, the sleeve is driven intermittently 
by means of a ratchet wheel J/, which receives its 
motion from an eccentric, through the eccentric-strap 
N, to which is attached the pawl 0. The arm a is 




Fig. 23.— Backing off Milling-Cutters. (Balzer.) 

for the purpose of keeping a friction on the ratchet- 
wheel M to prevent the sleeve B from rotating con- 
tinuously with the lathe, the desired amount of friction 
being adjusted by the nut b. Between the arm a, the 
ratchet, and the nut b are two fiber washers to pre- 
vent unnecessary wear. 

The throw of the eccentric which drives the ratchet 
can be decreased or increased in order to change the 



28 SHOP KINKS AND 

travel of the pawl to correspond to the number 
of teeth desired in the cutter. This is adjusted by 
a lever Z, (not shown in the cut) . 

Thus the cycle of operations of the device is as 
follows : — 

Suppose the tool to be starting at what is to be the 
cutting edge of a tooth in the cutter, the latter is 
slowly rotated and at the same time moved toward 
the tool to give the required clearance. When the 
next gap in the cutter is reached, it stops rotating 
and at the same time recedes from the tool until 
time for the cut to begin on the next tooth, the lathe 
running steadily all the time and making as many 
revolutions as there are teeth in the cutter, while 
the cutter rotates but once. 

As the arbor A is continuous from end to end of 
the device, the cutter is held quite rigidly, and as this 
arbor is in precisely the same position upon the 
centers during the cut upon each tooth, all the teeth 
must be alike. 

This device will back-off cutters having 9, 12, 18 
and 36 teeth, by setting the pawl to take either 1,2, 
3 or 4 teeth of the ratchet at each rotation of the 
lathe-spindle. The pawl can be set by loosening the 
nut on the left side of the tool and moving either to 
or from the center, to change the eccentric-throw. 

Bell Chucks. The Direct Separator Co. has occa- 
sion to use two bell chucks on the lathe for every 
different size of separator. To avoid the cost of 
threading these numerous chucks on the lathe-spindle, 
the plan shown in Figure 24 has been adopted. 
The chucks are simply bored and faced to fit the nuts 
and shoulder of the lathe- spindle, and one nut does 
for all chucks. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



29 



To remove chucks from the lathe-spindle, if put 
en in the ordinary way, is troublesome ; but with the 
nut shown it is only necessary to drive the ring B off 
the conical surface of the nut A } which is split open; 
then the whole can be run off by hand. In the work 
referred to where a piece has been threaded at one 
end and as it is held in the chuck (see Figure 24) it 
is screwed on to piece Figure 26 to thread the other 
end. If the piece were allowed to screw up tight 
against the shoulder as at A 1 it would be forced up so 
tight as to come off hard. To avoid this, two or 






Figs. 24 to 27 inclusive. — Bell Chucks (Direct Separator Co.). 

more set- screws as at B are screwed up tight against 
their heads, and the points faced off true. The 
piece to be threaded is allowed to screw up tight 
against the points of these screws, and after the work 
is finished, slacking back the set-screws allows the 
work to be removed readily. 

Figure 27 shows the application of the same prin- 
ciple to a plug for screwing on screwed heads. 

A Spring Lathe=Chuck for brass-work, used by the 
Hancock Inspirator Co., is shown complete in Figure 
28; Figure 29 being a mid-section, and Figure 30 a side 



3° 



SHOP KINKS AND 



view of the split gripping-piece and an end view of the 
split piece. It has only three pieces : A screws on 



r 





B 












Figs. 28 and 29. — Lathe-Chuck. 

the spindle and takes one end of the work ; C grips 
it ; B screws on A and takes the other end of C. This 
last has a donble cone D Eand is split in three, nearly 





Fig. 30. — Side and End of Split Pieces. 

full length (as shown at F) , so that when B is screwed 
on it the two cones on A B compress C. 

Work=Dri vers for Lathes. The ordinary bent-tailed 
dog tends to spring long and slender work on all cuts 
and even heavy short work on roughing cuts. The 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 



3i 



straight-tailed dog has rather less of this tendency^ 
especially if it have two tails and is driven by pins in 




Fig. 3t. 



-Securing Driving-Pins to Face-Plates 
(S. A. Woods Mch. Co.). 



the face-plate. The face-plate shown in Figure 31 is 
used by the S. A. Woods Co. It has an annular T- 




Fig. 32 — Two-Part Clamp-Dog. 

groove with a cut at H to admit two nuts into which 
are screwed the pins P, which may be tightened 



32 



SHOP KINKS AND 



lightly so as to come to an equal bearing on the 
clamps, under the pressure of the work ; after which 
they may be tightened. 

Another way is shown in Figure 32, being a two- 
part clamp with driving- pins P in holes equi-distant 
from the lathe-center ; but in this as in the last there 
may be unequal drive. 

The Clements driver, shown in Figure 33, has in the 
driving- plate F four slots, two of which, A and B, 
pass clear through to admit shouldered bolts C and 




dp 



H 



Fig. 33 — Lathe-Driver (Frank Clements). 

D, which fit firmly to the lathe face-plate but easily 
in the plate F. 

The other two slots are T-shaped, receiving nuts 
into which are screwed the pins P P. The bolts C and 
D drive F, and the pins P drive the work, the motion 
of E on the lathe face-plate equalizing the drive. 

Driving Work Held in Lathe=Bearings. In some of 
Sir Joseph Whitworth's lathes, as for turning fly- 
wheels and their shafts, the shafts run in their bear- 
ings instead of on centers ; this causes the work to 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



33 



be true with the journals (although it does not neces- 
sarily make the wheel balanced) . For driving the 
shaft on such work it is well to have a ' ' wabbler ' ' 
consisting of a piece having one end squared and the 
other end cupped with a square socket to receive the 
squared end of the driving-shaft ; the small squared 
end of the ' ' wabbler' ' fitting into a squared socket 
fastened to the driven shaft by set-screws. 

With this wabbler it makes no difference whether 
the driving and the driven shaft are in line or not. 

A Convenient Lathe-Driver for small cored pipe 
and cock work is that employed by the Hancock In- 
spirator shops and shown in Figure 34. The hub W, 
screwed on the driving-spindle, carries the rods B and 




Fig. 34 — Lathe-Driver for Small Cored Pipe and Cock 
Work (Hancock Inspirator Co.). 

B 1 , each of which is adjustable for length so that B 
may be set out to suit the work and i? 1 set out suffi- 
ciently to balance B and D . The driving-arm D is 
adjustable along B. The other end of the work is 



34 



SHOP KINKS AND 



shown centered in a loose conical frustum such as 
that shown in detail in Figures 12 and 13. 

A Handy Eccentric Vise for holding a special job is 
shown in Figures 35 and 36, as it was designed by 
Foreman Tretch, of the Riehle Testing Machine Co. 
A great number of pieces / were to be faced on both 




Figs. 35 and 36.— Handy Eccentric Vise (Riehle Bros.). 

sides 1 and 2 ; and as the milling-machines were busy, 
the device was arranged to be used on the cross- 
slide of a lathe. As the pieces were brass, high 
rotation-speed was used on the milling-cutters which 
straddled the sample 1. 

The inclined plane admitted of adjustment as to 
height to suit the cutter-diameter, and the pieces were 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 35 

set and clamped by the eccentric-roller, and bell-crank 
lever in a minimum amount of time, and a consider- 
able saving in output was effected over a moderate- 
speed milling-machine. 

Turning Large Bars which are liable to spring may 
be rendered more easy and accurate by having a two- 
part "doctor" or center-rest with a very large open- 
ing, which is bored out on the lathe so that it will be 
axially true, and then the bore recessed the same as 
an ordinary eccentric-strap. Inside this there rotates 
a ring representing the eccentric- sheave, and having 
on its face projections by which the piece to be 
worked is gripped, so that its ring rotates with the 
work-piece, in the doctor proper. This is a Califor- 
nia wrinkle. 

In Turning Shafting (which no one does nowadays 
unless he has to, as it may usually be bought so 
much cheaper than any one can make it who does 
not make a specialty of it) the work may be 
cheapened and improved by having, instead of a 
center- rest that does no work, one which will rough 
off the bar ; in other words, by having an internal 
mill — fluted and tempered, and ground to the size 
desired. 

Tool=Rests. At the old Freeland Works they used 
to have lathe- tool rests, the top of which had a hub 
threaded externally to receive a ring nut around 
whose edge there were numerous holes to receive a 
pin for operating the nut. The tool-post was central 
in the hub. When the tool was loose the ring might 
be operated by hand ; but when it was not it might be 
gripped and the ring nut operated by a pin. This is 
good for large lathes. 



36 SHOP KINKS AND 

Brown & Sharpe use in their tool-posts two adjust- 
ing and gripping screws, one front and the other 
back, on which sits a gib on which the tool is placed. 
The top of the tool-post slot has a cylindrical convex 
surface so that it will bear only along one line of the 
tool ; this latter being supported along the whole 
length of the gib. The absence of a set-screw at the 
top of the post enables a better view to be had of the 
tool. 

Stiff Slide=Rests may be made by having the slide 
overhanging on the left side only, so that when it is 
used on short work (which is the most common) , 
and on facing work (which is where the rest requires 
to be stiffest), the non-overhanging part gets the 
strain. If the cross-slide is made the lower one, the 
rest will always face the work square, even if the 
upper slide is set to turn taper. The tool may be 
clamped by two bars, each of which has two screws, 
with sufficient space left at the ends of these bars on 
the short side to admit of the tool being gripped 
between their free ends and the rest. These clamps 
are more convenient for boring than the ordinary 
tool-post. 

Steady=Rest for Tapering Work. The form of 

steady-rest shown in Figure 37 was devised at the old 
Freeland Works for steadying in the lathe such 
square taper blanks as billiard cues are made of. The 
usual stand has bearing in it a ring A, that has four 
inward projections B in which there slide easily but 
closely the steadying- jaws C\ which are pressed to 
the work by spiral springs. These jaws thus steady 
and center the work at no matter what point in its 
length, and have the advantage that they can lead 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



37 



instead of following the cutting- tool, so that the 
work is steadied on both sides of the cut. 




Fig. 37. Steady-Rest (Freeland). 

Breaking of Tool=Clamp Bolts sometimes causes 
trouble and loss of temper, and is apt to occur not 




Fig. 38.— To Prevent Breaking Tool-Clamp Bolts. 

only where the work is roughly handled, but with 
ordinary handling where irregularly-shaped tools are 
used. To prevent his, such appliances as are shown 



38 SHOP KINKS AND 

in Figure 38 may be used, there being an ordinary 
washer, a plano-convex washer, and a plano-concave 
nut. With these there is play enough to give the 
bolts a better show, while the grip is as tight as need 
be desired. 

Swivel Tool-Holders having cutters so adjustable 
that they can not only be swiveled round and then 
fixed to any desired angle but be made to project at 
pleasure to any required distance to reach and cut 
into all sorts of difficult and awkward curves are in 
use by Smith & Coventry, of Manchester (Eng- 
land) . The steel used for the cutters is of a deep V 
section, having its lower angle slightly rounded. 

Angle-Gages for Lathe=Tools will be found desirable 
to have about the place. One block may have in it 
half a dozen notches ; say 35, 45, 60 and 90 degrees 
with one side perpendicular to the block- face ; one 
notch for parting- tools, etc. Reversing the plate 
makes the gage right for tools of opposite u hand," 
and the perpendicular-sided notches are of course all 
right for angles where one side is perpendicular. 
Smith & Coventry seem to be the originators of 
this. 

To Take a " Hog Cut " on very small and compara- 
tively long shafts, and to avoid the necessity of shift- 
ing a ring doctor along as would be necessary where 
the whole length of the shaft was to be turned down, 
provide a hard steel angle-block which will receive 
the thrust of the tool, placing this at such a point 
that it will just take in the shaft between it and the 
tool, when the right size is reached. This is held 
by the tool-post and enables the entire amount to be 
taken off in one cut, when it is started. The crotch 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 39 

of the angle may be directly opposite the tool, or one 
of its sides may be vertical and the other horizontal ; 
the angle being ninety degrees in either case. 

Tool=Post Slots in lathes are nsnally too small ; 
especially in these days when many machinists prefer 
to nse a "patent" tool-holder of iron, holding a 
"bit" of steel. Bnt the post-slots are too small, 
not for this reason alone, bnt because they do not 
enable the use of tools large enough to carry away 
the heat fast enough. I agree with the late Robert 
Briggs, of Morris, Tasker & Co., that the smallest 
solid working-tool for iron should be 1} inches, 
with f-inch steel in the shank ; and if inches by 
1 J- inches is not excessive for tools for v 30- inch lathe ; 
while for a 48-inch lathe there should be a slot 2f 
inches or even 3 inches by 2 J inches, with a 2 -inch 
screw. 

Feed=Gage for Lathes. Ordinarily, as where two 
nuts are used for feed-gages for a number of pieces, 
it is necessary to take all the roughing-cuts first and 
then finish. This makes ar extra cost and delay for 
chucking, which may be done away with by having 
a third nut, split so as to clamp when necessary ; 
setting this to the finishing size, and so first taking 
the rough cut, then throwing in the split nut and 
taking the finish cut to gage. 

Chucking Shafting=Boxes. In the Lane & Bodley 
shops, when it is required to turn the spherical face 
of a shaft-box true to the axis of the box-bore, a 
half-round mandrel is fastened to the face-plate, and 
the half bearing is clamped on it by bolts and plates, 
so that if the half-round mandrel is set true the bear- 
ings will be true also. The tool-point is made to 



4o 



SHOP KINKS AND 



travel in the arc of the circle by a former on the side 
of the cross-slide. The slide is kept in contact with 
the former by a weight and cord. 




Fig. 39.— Center-Drilling Device. (Top View.) 




Fig. 40. — Center-Drilling Device. (End View.) 

Center=Drilling Device. The rig here shown, and 
which I believe originated in Hartford, consists of a 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 41 

stand S bolted to the lathe-shears and carrying studs 
that act as a guide to the head G, which has a hole 
coned at each end. G has arms which slide on the 
pins P, and against two spiral springs which sur- 
round them. The work is forced up to G by a cup 
chuck D in the tail-spindle T. It allows the use of 
any kind of a drill. 



■s 



1 




Fig. 41. — Combined Drill and Countersink. 

A Combined Countersink and Drill is shown in 
Figure 41, the drill passing through the countersink 
and being fastened by the screw S. 

Center=Reamers. There is no question about it 
that the best angle for lathe-centers is 60 degrees ; 
and there should be no more question that work- 
centers should be the same, and should be centers 
instead of merely depressions somewhere in the end 
of the work. 




Fig. 42.— Center Reamer. ' (6o° Angle.) 



What every shop should have is a center-reamer 
such as is shown in Figure 42, which is made and 
ground accurately to a 60- degree angle, and which 
will insure that the center in the work is exactly the 
proper angle. 

Rose=Bit Reamer. In the Dickson Manufacturing 
Company's locomotive shops they have a reamer which 



42 SHOP KINKS AND 

is somewhat similar to a rose-bit, the cutting being 
done by beveled edges at the end of the tool, and not 
by flutes. To enable it to discharge its chips and not 
get clogged there are two or more S-shaped grooves 
crossing each other on the end of the tool ; the chips 
curling away from the cutting edges into these grooves 
and thus escaping. The edge of the flutes is radial. 

Gage for Turning Tapers. "Cut and try n is no 
way to turn tapers, especially if there is a collar on a 
male piece that is to be tapered. To facilitate such 
work it is best to have a gage like that shown in 




Fig. 43. — Gage for Turning Tapers. 

Figure 43, on which there are two marks, A and B, 
the distance between which represents the amount to 
be allowed to make a drive fit. 

Centering-Device. Back in 1878 Mr. A. L,. Crosby 
showed to me a centering-device for round stock, cut 
to length in a cutting- off machine. As may be seen 
from the illustration, Figure 44, there is a cone or cup 
A y having a handle in which latter there is a spiral 
spring C which presses out a center point B. If the 
bore in which C plays is at right angles to the rim of 
Ay and is properly centered with relation thereto, the 
cone will bring the center of objects of circular section 
to the point of B — always provided that this is central 
with B itself. 

Cast=Iron Lathe=TooIs. After you have got tired 
paying a tool-maker to forge and grind up tools for 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 



43 



turning off those cylinder- heads, you will try cast-iron 
tools, made out of car- wheel iron and nicely chilled. 
They will take a greedy bite and not get discouraged ; 
will stand four or five grindings, and will not require 
grinding so often as the steel tools. 




Fig. 44. — Centering Device. 

Turning Brass Balls. If you have brass balls to 
turn down smooth enough to be used for check r valves 
you may do it best (after the tit has been cut off, by 
which they were held for a preliminary turning) by a 
ring or short tube of tool-steel bored and ground on the 
face so that its inner edge has good cutting capacity, 
and capped with a wooden disk so as to make it handy 
to be held against the ball, while the latter is rotated 
by means of a wooden cup chuck covering about two- 
firths of its surface. 

Clearance and Rake of lathe and planer- tools may 



44 



SHOP KINKS AND 



very readily be compared and noted by setting them 
on their backs on a level surface and setting an 
ordinary steel square up on edge alongside of them. 

Chasers would seem at first thought to be antiquated 
devices, and in shops of the middle class they are 
considered absurd ; but" they are still to be found in 
country machine-shops and in establishments of world- 




Figs. 45 and 46. — Chasers (Pratt & Whitney Co.). 

wide renown. The Pratt & Whitney Company uses 
them of the form shown in Figures 45 and 46 for 
roughing out. The chaser itself, A ) being short, is 
cheap to make ; the clamp B is recessed in the middle 
so that it bears only at the ends and hence grips very 
firmly ; while the curved lip C adjusts it fairly well on 
the chaser. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 



45 



Turning Chilled Rolls. Those who have essayed 
turning chilled rolls for the first time have not been 
pleased with the experiment and usually not satisfied 
with their success. It is an art in itself; an art which 
perhaps the late Morton Poole, of Wilmington, Dela- 
ware, did more than any other one man to bring to 
perfection — and to perfection he certainly brought the 
grinding of chilled calender-rolls for paper-making. 
Before, however, the grinding operation is commenced 
there must be as nearly perfect work done by the lathe 
as it is possible for such an imperfect machine-tool as 




Fig. 47.— Tool for Chilled Rolls (J. Morton Poole & Co.). 

a lathe to perform ; but most tools for this work have 
the double disadvantage that they do not do good 
work and do not work fast enough. The work 
reminds one of the Scotchman's porridge, "cold, 
burned, sour and gritty ; and damn it, there was not 
enough of it." But by the use of a simple tool, such 
as is shown in Figure 47, the work is rendered very 
easy, and its quality, for lathe- work, leaves nothing to 
complain of. 

A plain bar of tool-steel is taken, about one and 
one-quarter inches square, and about four inches of it 
cut off, and then fluted on each side with a semi- circular 



46 SHOP KINKS AND 

channel of abont three-eighths inch radius. All four 
sides of the bar being then ground so that the four 
angles are exactly 90 degrees each, the tool is ready to 
be clamped in the tool-holder and set to work. It does 
not remove curls of material, but takes off a series of 
brittle thread-like turnings, about the size and general 
shape of pine-needles. When one band four inches 
wide is turned, the tool is moved along. 

Boring Curved Nozzles with straight tools is not so 
difficult as might be thought. The tool required is a 
simple wedge having a thickness equal to the smallest 
diameter of the nozzle, and a diagonal at the base, 
equal to the largest nozzle-diameter. These tools are 
readily sharpened. It was about 1873 or 1874 that I 
had a good deal to do with competitive tests of steam 
fire-engines and with the improvement of such engines, 
and when the acceptance or rejection of an engine was 
based on its beating the stream thrown by another, 
and when also there was from $5,000 to $10,000 bet 
on the result as a side issue, the nozzle played (no pun 
intended) quite an important part. I had a number 
of nozzles made for this purpose, many of them at the 
Pusey & Jones shops by Harry English (who was 
one of the best brass turners I ever saw) . English 
made for me, from my sketches, nozzles having a 
curved taper, with which the stream of one engine 
was raised from 307 to 318 feet with the same conditions 
of steam-pressure, wind, etc. There are now several 
hundred curved gun-metal nozzles thus bored in use 
in American fire departments, where they drove out 
the much vaunted ' ' ring ' ' and ( ' straight- taper } ' 
nozzles, and have never been excelled except by some 
glass-lined tips which I brought out still later, and 
with which some of the world's records were made. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 47 

Turret=Lathe Tool. A very efficient tool for use in 
a turret-lathe of either the " Monitor " or the "Revol- 
ver ' ' type is one which I saw in use in the Brown & 
Sharpe shops. It is intended to do better work and 
more work than is ordinarily done with a plain tool 
for reducing stock. 

Ordinarily, there is a cylindrical head fastened to a 
cylindrical shank, which latter fits into the socket in 
the lathe-turret ; this head is hollow and bears three 
tools which project radially inward and which, as the 
tool is presented to the end of the stock to be reduced 
in diameter, crowd off material in a way and at a rate 
which are far from satisfactory. In the tool which 
attracted my attention in the Brown & Sharpe shops 
these inwardly projecting cutters are not radial but are 
inclined so as to give them rake, so that each one acts 
like a properly formed and set lathe- tool; and the 
effect is a very greedy yet smooth cut, consuming less 
power for a given cut, and heating the material less, 
also, for a stated amount removed per minute, than 
where the ordinary cutters are used. Half the rough- 
ing is done with a head having three such raking 
cutters ; the finishing is done with one having one 
cutting and two steadying or centering- tools, the result 
being a fast " sweet " cut and handsome finish. 

Boring and Threading should be greatly facilitated 
by the use of a tool which I have seen in some of the 
Eastern shops, and which I show here, as applied in 
the tool-post. There is an offset bar of drop-forged 
steel which is inserted in the post ; this has a split 
bore through which is clamped a round bar of cold- 
rolled steel, turned down and threaded at one end to 
receive either one of two caps. One of these caps has 
a hole through which a self-hardening steel cutter may 



48 



SHOP KINKS AND 



be thrust at right angles; the other, a cap for the 
reception of a similar cutter at an angle of 45 °. 
Centered in the end of the rolled-steel bar there is a 
tool-steel pin, against which, when the cap is screwed 




Fig. 48. — Armstrong Tool- Holder. 

up, a similar tool-steel pin is screwed, holding the cut- 
ter in place . ( See Figure 48 ) . There is a special wrench 
(see Figure 49) the round side of which slips over the 
cap on the end of the bar, the slot engaging the cutter 
by which the cap is screwed up, pressing the cutter 




Fig. 49. — Wrench for Tool-Holder. 

against the hardened-steel pin. The square side fits 
the steel collar-screw in the split hub. Such a tool 
should do away largely with forging, dressing and 
tempering, and save tool-steel, time and annoyance. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



49 



Center=Holes for lathe- work should be countersunk 
only enough to permit the piece to be squared off ; 
then they should be countersunk again, because if the 
piece is not square-ended at the time of the first 
countersinking, the countersink will cut more to one 
side than to the other, leaving, when the piece is cut 
off square, a wider bevel on one side than on the 
other; then the axis will be changing as the piece 
wears. 

Centering Lathe=Work. "Things are not always 
what they seem." One of the cases in which this is 
so is where work in a lathe is calipered at only one 
diameter, or that diameter is found at which the sides 
are equi-distant from the center as shown by their 
touching the lathe- tool equally. The center thus 
found will not necessarily give the largest piece that 
can be got out of the stick. For instance, in Figure 
50, the points a and b are equally distant from the 





Figs. 50 and 51. — Centering Lathe-Work. 

temporary center P ; but by reason of the nearness of 
the point 6, a much smaller cylinder could be turned 
out than if Q were the center. The same thing is 



5 o SHOP KINKS AXD 

shown again in Figure 51 at B, where c and h are 
equally distant from the point i?, but a very much 
smaller circle can be inscribed with that as a center 
than by using S. In the piece A the points e and / 
are much better indications than a and b ; and in a 
piece of the shape of B there should be three points 
calipered. 

Tool=Points Breaking. If you have ever had the 
point of a lathe- tool break off in cutting V- threads, 
especially on tool-steel, you will be glad to try, 
next time, the plan of filing with a three-cornered file, 
on the same inclination as the thread, a place about 
the depth of the thread for the tool to run into. 

Fluting with the Lathe. To cut rearner-nutes in a 
lathe, grind a side- tool with the desired clearance and 
set its top edge level with the lathe- center, divide the 
spandrel-gear circumference into as many parts as 
there are to be flutes, and mark the division-points 
with chalk ; then traverse the lathe-carriage back and 
forth by hand, using the spandrel-gear as an index to 
get the distance between flutes right. Divide the 
shank of the reamer into quarters by means of the 
spandrel-gear, using a pointer-tool. For a half-round 
taper reamer it will be necessary to be sure that the 
lathe-centers are set straight before commencing, else 
the flutes will not be equally spaced. 

Cutting Speed of Lathe=Tools. In calculating the 
number of feet per minute at which a lathe-tool is 
cutting, measure the perimeter before the cut and after, 
and multiply the mean of these two measures by the 
number of rotations per minute. 

Centering and Squaring up Connecting=Rods. I go 
into Squibob's shop and find a man having a connect- 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 51 

ing-rod to center and square up, laying out a center 
with a pair of dividers from the square end, driving in 
a center punch, putting the rod in the lathe, marking 
the rod on the high side, dropping it on a block, and 
with a small half-round chisel digging the ' ' center ' ' 
(Heaven save the mark ! ) over to the side called for by 
the chalk-mark, then putting it in the lathe for another 
chalk-mark, and so on. Then when the rod runs 
( ' about ' ' right, he takes a racket and reams a center 
on which to turn the rod. If the rod is too long he 
squares the ends to the desired length. Then he cuts 
off the projecting u centers," and proceeds to re-center 
the rod. 





Fig. 52. — Squaring up Connecting-Rods (Delamater Works). 

Suppose that we try another way, taught me by 
Superintendent Brown of the Delamater Works. We 
will say that the rod is about six feet long. Let us 
put it on a planer-bed or drill bed-plate, or even on a 
good level board, and place under each neck a V block 
as shown in Figure 52, so that the rod may be turned 
over without much changing its position. Now tak- 
ing a scribe-block, let us draw a line aa across the 
upper side of the square end ; then turning the rod one- 
fourth way around as shown by the arrow, scribe the 
line bb ; then again turn and scribe, until the lines cc, 
dd, are brought on top. Now we have enclosed in 



52 SHOP KINKS AND 

these lines a square the center of which is in the center 
line of the neck ; but this need not be changed in order 
to make the part run true in the lathe. If the end of 
the rod is to be finished to 2 \ by 4 \ inches, we will 
take the center a, from which to scribe two circles, one 
2 \ inches in diameter and the other 4 J inches. Then 
with the scribe-block on the surface-gage, we draw a 
parallelogram on the rod-end. From this we can tell 
whether or not the rod-end will clean up to the center 
x ; and if it will not, we can caliper the neck and find 
how much stock will have to come off ; then we can 
draw the center to suit. 

If the rod should be left by the smith say an inch 
too long, we take a tit- drill and drill in far enough so 
that it will leave about 1-32 inch to square off in the 
lathe ; then we can remove the tit-drill and use a 
countersink for the final center on which the rod is to 
turn. This latter work can be done in a horizontal 
drill or in an old lathe, by having a drill- chuck fitted 
to the spindle. 

Centering Lathe=Work. Sykes has just put a shaft 
in a lathe without drilling and countersinking the 
centers, and the result is that he is doing work which 
is a trifle out of true, and at the same time he is en- 
larging the lathe-centers and making it less possible 
for him to do correct work on other jobs that follow. 
It is about the same way all over his shop, and the 
result is that it takes a man who has run any tool in 
his place to get any sort of work out of that tool. A 
new man coining in would appear to be a botch 
although he had come from a good place in one of the 
best shops in the country, while an old u mossback " 
who knows how to humor Sykes' lathes and things 
will get creditable work out of them. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 53 

Ballard goes to the other extreme ; he puts about a 
three-quarter- inch hole in the end of a two-inch shaft. 

Truing Rubber Rolls. Rubber rolls, such as those 
used for the feed of various machines, and in leather- 
splitting machinery, require to be trued up from time 
to time ; and this is best done by grinding. This can 
be done with a very coarse open emery-wheel, the face 
of which is kept constantly chalked to prevent what 
would correspond to pinning in filing. 

Turning Vulcanized Fiber. Those who are experi- 
menting with vulcanized fiber bearings, with and 
without graphite, and with other things in which they 
find it necessary to turn or bore paper or papier machd , 
often wonder what is the best turning-tool for paper. 
There is no special best tool. Take what there is, but 
see that it is sharp and has very little clearance, as 
the character of the material is such that the tool has 
a great tendency to dig in and meets very little resist- 
ance to prevent it. One principal trouble is that bear- 
ing in mind the supposed analogy between paper and 
wood, as compared with iron, they undertake to turn 
paper with a wood- turning tool, or with an iron-turn- 
ing tool run at a wood- turning speed. If they will 
only run the lathe or boring-mill with boring- tools, at 
a spsed just a trifle in advance of that necessary for 
cast iron with the same diameter of work, good results 
should be obtained. 

For Key=Seating a Shaft or an Axle while in the 
lathe, there may be employed two or three ways. One 
is by rotating a cutter on a vertical arbor, driven by a 
worm-wheel which is in turn operated by an endless 
screw on a shaft bearing a grooved pulley driven by a 
round belt from an overhead shaft ; the whole rig being 
held on the slide-rest. 



54 SHOP KINKS AND 

Another device for doing the same thing is also an 
attachment to the slide-rest, and consists of a horizon- 
tal cotter drill passing through a tool-post and bearing 
on its outer end a small worm-wheel driven by an end- 
less screw on a shaft having the same kind of a 
grooved pulley for a round driving-belt. 

Turning Shafts. There are three reasons why it is 
best to turn as little as possible off the outside of 
wrought- iron or steel shafts. One is that it costs more 
to take a deep cut than to take a slight one ; the 
second is that the more you take off the greater you 
waste; and the third, of which very few take special 
notice, is that the further from the outside you go the 
poorer the material ; this being true both of castings 
and of forgings or of rolled articles. Turning down 
shafting is only to make up for imperfections in sur- 
face or in diameter. If shafts could be rolled perfectly 
true in surface and in section, there would not only be 
no necessity for turning them down, but there would 
be an actual loss in doing so ; it would be paying 
money and taking time, to lessen the value of the 
article. 

But where shafting has to be turned down, one 
thing should be done, to start with a sharp tool and 
with a good enough tool to be able to take the full 
length of the tool without any perceptible wear of the 
tool ; for every one-hundredth of an inch that the tool 
wears in length makes the shaft one- fiftieth of an inch 
greater in diameter, and there is no earthly use in 
having even a six-inch shaft one-fiftieth of an inch 
larger at one end than at the other. Another advan- 
tage in having the tool sharp is that the sharper it is, 
other things being equal, the more likely it is to keep 
on cutting instead of starting to dig in. A sharp tool 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 55 

will trim off the edge of a seam or skim off trie edges 
of a soft place, where a dull one will refuse to do it 
and will go fighting for a place to dig in and sulk. 
That is one of the several reasons why emery and 
corundum wheels do better work in making calender- 
rolls and milling-rolls than the best turning- tools in 
the best of lathes can do, with the best of workmen ; 
and this is one reason why in ordering a steam-engine 
you should be particular to specify that the crank -pins 
should be ground after turning. 

Counterbalancing Cranks While Turning Them. 
Much better work is done in turning up cranks if they 
are counterbalanced while in the lathe ; but if this is 
done when the cranks are in place for working, the 
balance will not be true by reason of the friction of the 
lathe having to be overcome. To do this properly, 
screw steel plugs into the center-pieces and balance 
the crank while hung on cone-centers ; then you may 
chuck in the lathe in the usual manner. This method 
will answer for two-throw or three-throw cranks as 
well as for any other ; the balancing-pieces being 
bolted to the centering-pieces in such positions and 
amounts as will cause the piece to remain any side up 
independently. 

Boring Tapers. In order to set the swivel on a lathe 
for boring any degree of taper, measure the diameter 
of the circular rest-seat, and scribe on a flat surface a 
circle of that diameter, mark its center and draw a 
radial line AB, Figure 53 ; mark off a distance AB 
equal to the diameter of the small end of the hole to be 
bored ; draw the line AG at right angles to AB, and 
GD parallel to AB, of a length equal to the diameter 
of the lar.ee end of the hole. Connecting DB, the 
distance EF on the circumference of the circle between 



*6 



SHOP KINKS AND 




Fig. 53 — Calculating Adjustment of Slide- Rest. 

where AG and BD cut it will be the amount that 
the rest must be swiveled to t cut the desired taper. 
Figure 54 shows a good form of rest for such work. 




Fig. 54.— Swivel Rest for Boring Tapers. 

Nicking Stock for Breaking Off. I saw a man, who 
was old enough to know better, u nicking" a piece of 
stock with a half-round tool. This requires a much 
deeper nick to effect breakage at the desired point than 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 57 

where a V tool is used. Where a square-nosed tool 
is used, there is also required a deeper nick than 
with the V tool, and the break will be apt to occur 
at one of the abrupt angles instead of in the middle 
of the groove. 

flet ric= Pitch Screws. You want to cut screws with 
a metric pitch, for that Persian job, and don't know 
just how to make your lathe "walk Spanish"? Few 
things easier. Make a ' ' translating gear ' ' having on 
one stud two wheels, one with fifty teeth and the 
other with 157. Their ratio is 1 to 0.3937, which is 
about as close as you will be liable to get anything ; 
for the lathes that work to fine decimal points are few, 
and the men who will do it on them just as few. 

Turning a Cube in a Lathe. While the lathe, con- 
sidered as a tool for turning objects perfectly round, is 
not a success, yet it may be made to do a great many 
other things well. For instance, one can turn a cube 
in it. To do this from a cylinder, get one that is ' as 
long as it is thick, or to put it more technically, the 
diameter of which is equal to its hight. Describe a 
square on one of its circular faces or ends. Find two 
points on its convex side, at just half its length from 
each end, and exactly opposite each other. Chuck 
the cylinder about the diameter joining these two lines, 
and face off a slab down to one of the four lines repre- 
senting the side of the cube that is to be. Chuck it 
again at the quarter-points, removing a slab, then 
reverse and take off a fourth slab, and the cube is left. 

To cut a cube of a given size from a cylinder, there 
must be used one having a diameter equal to the diag- 
onal of one of the flat sides of the cube. To turn a 
cube from a sphere, the latter must have a diameter 
equal to the longest diagonal of the cube. Thus, to 



58 SHOP KINKS AND 

get a one- inch cube we must have a cylinder i. 41 4 
inches in diameter, or a sphere 1.678 inches. 

Various Uses of the Lathe. One use to which it 
may be put in a manufacturing business (as distin- 
guished from a jobbing business where no two succes- 
sive pieces of work are alike) is to act as a rotary 
shears for cutting off wire and small rods. In order 
to do this, bolt on the face-plate a hardened steel plate 
or block having one edge so placed as to cut the radius 
of the face-plate at an angle ; then provide for the tool- 
post a block bored or drilled exactly to fit the wire or 
rod, and so placed that the cutting-plate or block bolted 
on the face-plate shall just clear it in rotating ; also 
that when so placed the bore-hole shall be at right 
angles with the face of the face-plate. Then every 
time the face-plate makes a rotation, it will cut off from 
the wire (if the latter is kept pushed up against it) a 
piece as long as the distance of projection of the cut- 
ting-plate which is bolted to it. If shorter lengths are 
desired, they may be arranged for without making a 
thinner block or plate, by fastening a thickness-piece 
on the face-plate in advance of the cutting edge of the 
plate or block, letting it extend far enough in advance 
to make it easy to let the end of the wire or rod bear on 
it without getting snagged by its advancing edge. 

Boring Holes in the Lathe should never be done 
before the work has been faced off. There are two 
reasons for this ; the bore would not be true if the fac- 
ing was left to the last, and the scale would dull the 
boring- tool. 

Starting Reamer. To get a hole the right size for a 
hand reamer to follow, such a machine reamer as is 
shown in Figure 55 will do well. It may follow an 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



59 



ordinary twist drill ; if the drill is forced through 
straight there will be but little work for the machine 
reamer to do, and still less for the hand reamer. It 
can be about four-one-thousandths smaller than the 
hand reamer, with a slight taper ; and say about two- 
thousandths smaller at the back than at the cutting 




Fig. 55.— Starting Reamer. 



edges. For iron and steel its teeth need not be backed 
off lengthwise as in a hand reamer, as it cuts only on 
the beveled end. For brass it must be backed off the 
whole length to keep it from binding. 

Stepped Reamer for Tapers. Tapered holes may be 
reamed true more readily by roughing them out first 
with a stepped reamer, such as is shown in Figure 56, 
the ends of the steps, A, B, (7, being in a straight line 




Fig. 56. — Stepped Reamer for Tapers. 



although 



DD which has the requisite degree of taper 
the diameters must be a trifle less than the required 
finished diameter, so that the finishing reamer with 
an ordinary straight taper may give the right size 



60 SHOP KINKS AND 

exactly. Each step should have about one-one-hun- 
dredth inch clearance, not quite meeting the flute of its 
cutting-side. In this tool each step has a guide for its 
cutting-edge. The flute may be straight or spiral, 
and if the taper is very slight a left-hand spiral will be 
necessary to keep the tool from running forward and 
taking too deep a cut ; but if there is much taper it is 
better to have a right-hand spiral. 

Fine Taper Reaming. Almost any one can do good 
parallel reaming, but it takes a mechanic to ream 
taper, especially when the diameter and degree of taper 
must be absolute. Those who have tried it and found 
on their first attempts that there were left lines run- 
ning along the bore, just where each tooth or lip 
stopped, will admit that to ream taper is a fine art. 
The Hancock Inspirator Co. manufactures a boiler- 
feeder which must be made just right or it will not 
give proper service, and this must be done on a com- 
mercial basis so that the device may be sold in compe- 
tition with others, and at a profit. The reamer which 
is used in its shops for fine taper work has a section 
almost like a circular saw with very large raking teeth, 
comparatively few in number. In fact the lips are so 
fluted as to have no backs at all ; and then the backs 
put on by grinding for about one-sixty-fourth inch 
after the hardening has been done, and last giving the 
clearance by an oil-stone. The greatest possible odd 
number of teeth is used, and the flutes are parallel with 
the axis. Their work is very light, just to give a slight 
scrape. 

Adjustable vs. Standard Reamers. In many shops 
there are adjustable reamers capable of very fine range 
of variations at will ; but the Pratt & Whitney Co. 
finds that a reamer of fixed diameter properly relieved 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



61 



and made of good tool steel, carefully hardened and 
tempered, will in the ordinary operations of machine- 
shop practice maintain its standard qualities long after 
the more adjustable reamer is laid aside. In this Com- 
pany's shops an ordinary non-adjustable chuck reamer 
reamed to gage over 14,000 holes two inches deep in 
cast iron without perceptible change of size, using 
simply an upright drill for the work. 

An Adjustable Reamer for small work is shown in 
Figure 57 ; it comes from the ' ' land of steady habits. ' ' 
The cutters A and B are adjustable along their slots 




Fig. 57. — Adjustable Reamer for Small Work. 

by the screw C and the nut D. For larger work (say 
up to three or four inches) the form shown in Figure 




Fig. 58. — Adjustable Reamer for Large Work. 

58 is good. The cutters AB, CD have two cutting- 
edges each, and are held by screws set at an angle to 



62 SHOP KINKS AND 

the arbor-axis and are irregularly spaced. As they 
wear they are set out by paper. 

Reaming Brass. After reaming brass be careful to 
have the reamers not only sharper than for working in 
iron or steel, but with more clearness. In some shops, 
however, there is but one set of reamers for all kinds 
of work in every kind of metal. In such cases solid 
reamers will not answer ; they must be adjustable, and 
there must come with them a set of plug and ring 
gages by which they may be adjusted and with which 
the work itself may be tried. These gages come in 
handy also for caliper-setting when turning on the 
lathe. 




% 



Fig. 59. — Reamer for Brass. 

Figure 59 shows an adjustable reamer having three 
equally spaced slots milled or planed in its body, and 
having in these rectangular pieces of steel, held by 
small machine-screws ; then the whole turned down, 
leaving metal for grinding and hardening. Next the 
blade bottoms are ground straight, and the blades 
screwed to their place and ground to within two-thou- 
sandths of the finished size, next oil-stoned to size. To 
get good results in oil-stoning, use the slips as you 
would a file ; leave the cutting edges of the teeth the 
highest. This reamer may be brought up to size 
after wear, by packing strips of tissue paper. Under 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 



63 



three-fourths-inch this style could not be used, as it 
would be too light and would spring, by reason of the 
slots weakening the stock. 

Reamed Holes "Just a Trifle too Small." If mechan- 
ics worked as "fine" as they should, the trouble 
of finding a reamed hole ' ' just a trifle too small ' ' need 
not occur. As it is, it does happen, several times too 
often, and the main thing is not to inveigh against its 
happening, but to remedy it. Some years ago Mr. 
Almond patented a reamer for taking say half-a-thou- 
sandth of an inch from the inside of a hole, for instance, 
three or four inches in diameter in cast iron. There 
are teeth cut just as in an ordinary reamer, but then 
there is a slot in which slides a cutting-blade which 
may be made, by both it and the slot being tapered, to 
project any desired amount beyond the rest. By this 
means a very slight amount of cut may be made ; the 
other teeth acting practically only as guides. 

Holding Reamers while Harking them may be done 
by the rig shown in Figure 60. There is an inner 




i_i 



-- 



1^^^ 



Fig. 60.— Holding ReamersWhile Marking Them. (Harringtons.) 

sleeve which is free to turn, but cannot move end- 
wise by reason of the plug fitting in either of the 
grooves shown in the sectional view. This inner 
sleeve holds the reamer or tap or whatever it is, the 



64 SHOP KINKS AND 

first letter-punch is introduced in the opening, adjusted 
and struck with the hammer ; then the sleeve is turned 
the proper distance for the next letter, the second 
punch is introduced, and so on ; the fact being that 
all the letters are in line around the shank. Where 
there are two lines of lettering, the plug may be pulled 
out, the sleeve moved endwise the requisite distance, 
and the second circumferential line of marking done. 
Edwin Harrington & Son use this. 

Turret =Tool Lubricator. Instead of ordinary soap 
and water which you are now using, try whale-oil 
soap, which you will find better ; but still better yet, 
use good lard oil and plenty of it, and after use extract 
the chips therefrom (or extract it from the chips, 
whichever way you please to call it) by a filter, so as 
to use it again. Those who have enough of it to war- 
rant may use a centrifugal extractor ; but for ordinary 
purposes and small quantities a good filter does as 
well. 

Disposing of Turnings. Just what to do with the 
turnings and how to handle them most readily is a 
question which often agitates large establishments. 
They have a certain market value, where they are not 
disposed of in the shops that make them ; but if they 
are mixed, that is, brass and iron, or even steel and 
iron together, they are neither usable nor salable. In 
the Baldwin Locomotive Works, where there are run- 
ways all over the concern , all the kinds of turnings, 
cast iron, wrought iron, steel, and brass, are kept sep- 
arate to start with ; this being more readily done here, 
where piece-work is the rule (clear down to labor),- 
than where the other system prevails. The accumula- 
tions of each day are brought over in cars, each kind 
separately, to the second story of the boiler-house, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 65 

where there are shoots to convey them from hoppers, 
marked plainly with the name of each kind of turning, 
to cars or wagons on the street level. This system 
saves time in handling the material, and enables their 
delivery from all over the shops (covering several city 
blocks) to a certain point, all of a kind together. 

Quick=Return Planers. L,ife is short — and while 
it is just about as long now as it was in the days of 
our forefathers — perhaps a trifle longer owing to the 
better care that we can take of both weak and strong — 
we realize its brevity more vividly than our ancestors 
did, and we want to do more work in a given time in 
manufacturing and to do the same work in less time 
in repairing. This is shown better, perhaps, on the 
average metal-planer than on any other machine-tool. 
Once a return speed of two to one was considered 
ample ratio ; then three to one was thought rushing 
things ; but now few respectable builders will give less 
than five to one, and many shops demand seven to 
one where the work is not so heavy as to make the 
return from light cuts at high speed a cause of too 
much jar. 

Open=Side Planers. There is a large increase in the 
use of open-side planers and milling-machines, and 
there will be a still larger demand for them when the 
makers study rather further the laws of strains on 
framing, so as to stiffen their machines, without in- 
creasing their weight. Many machines would be more 
convenient if there were two tables, so that with certain 
classes of work one piece could be adjusting on one 
table while another was being worked on the other 
table. 

Overfeed of Planers may be rendered harmless by 
cutting off the threads at each end of the feed-screw, 



66 SHOP KINKS AND 

so that if the saddle feeds to the end of the screw the 
rest may not be carried against the end of the cross- 
slide. 

Taking up Apron=Pivot Wear. When the apron of 
a planer or a shaper gets loose on its pivot, so that it 
jmnps on entering and on leaving the cut, it is time 
to remedy it. This may be done by giving the apron 
a bevel projection on the back lower edge, fitting un- 
der a corresponding chamfer on the head, so that it 
cannot lift when the tool strikes the work, nor can it 
wobble side wise. 

Pit Planer Lead=Screw. In the Mennig shops in 
Brussels, Belgium, there is a big pit planer which has 
one very nice feature about its lead-screw. There is 
at one end a pair of collars which take the thrust in 
both directions and transmit it through a series of 
hardened steel balls to the bearing proper, thereby 
relieving the machine of very much of the strain to 
which it would otherwise be submitted. 

For Holding Work on a Planer=Bed many ways are 
employed ; some classes of work will be more readily 
held by one fastening and some by others. Where there 
are many pieces of the same kind made at once, there 
should usually be some certain and special provision 
made for holding and releasing promptly. One way 
for holding narrow and thin pieces is to let the end 
rest against the ordinary ' ' snub ' ' stuck through one 
of the holes in the planer-bed ; then at a few inches 
from each side to run in rows of snubs which have 
drilled and tapped in them about thirty degrees from 
the planer-bed and at right angles to its width, steel 
bolts having cone- center holes made in their lower 
ends. Between these bolts and the work to be held 
there are placed short pieces of steel rod with each end 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 67 

turned to about a sixty-degree cone. One end of each 
of these steel pieces digs into the side of the work, 
just above the planer-bed, the other end fits into the 
centers in the ends of the bolts ; the bolts and the 
steel pieces of course coming axially in line in order 
to get a good grip on the work, and to prevent the 
steel pieces being knocked out. The end snub takes 
the lengthwise horizontal thrust of the tool, and the 
side pieces resist both the lateral and the lifting ten- 
dency, so that greedy cuts can be made. 

Supplementary Planer=Tables. In order to permit 
a planer to take in work of greater width than the 
regular table, you may add supplementary tables fitted 
with T-slots and bolt-holes ; these lying across the 
table or bed proper, to which they are held by set- 
screws, passing through lugs extending down from the 
supplementary tables ; the distance between the inside 
surfaces of these lugs being just the width of the 
planer bed. Hewes & Phillips have these. They 
may be used in other ways, as for supporting frames, 
the ends and the sides of which are to be planed, and 
which may be held to one of these supplementary 
tables bolted to an angle-plate. They may also be 
used, end on, as butting-pieces for the ends of long 
frames which are to be planed on their edges. 

A Swiveling Supplementary Planer=Table is for 

many kinds of work, as for link- planing, an advant- 
age ; it may very readily be applied to a plain table 
clamped across the regular planer- table. 

Planer=Chucks. See to it that the bottoms of your 
planer- chucks are perfectly true, and that you have a 
number of perfectly parallel strips as long as the 
chuck-jaws ; then you can put all kinds of work in the 



68 SHOP KINKS AND 

chuck in a very short time, and at exactly the right 
depth. 

Shaper Chucks are, as ordinarily made, very incon- 
venient for working the ends of round work. If, 
however, they are made with the jaws projecting 
beyond the sides, the piece may be very readily handled. 

Bunter=Chucks for Planers. Many good planer- 
hands seldom use a vise if they can get out of it ; set- 
ting the work directly on the planer-table and holding 




Fig. 6i.— Bunter Chuck. 



it by u hunters," straps, etc. One of the best forms 
of bunter-chucks is shown in Figure 61, being made 
in 1 2-inch to 1 8-inch sections so that according to the 




Fig. 62.— Bunter Chuck. 



length of work being handled, one or more parts may 
be used in line. One side is made higher than the 
other, so that it may be used for work of different 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 69 

hights. The heads of the holding-screws are let into 
countersunk holes and slotted so that they may be 
turned by a strong screw-driver ; they enter nuts in 
the T-slot of the table. 

Where it is necessary to do a variety of small work 
on a medium-sized machine the form shown in Figure 




Fig. 63.— Showing Use of Bunter Screw. 

62 is useful ; two faces being at right angles to each 
other and vertical to the planer-table, thus saving 
much time in shifting fixtures, etc. 

Where by reason of the arrangement of holes in the 
planer-table the usual studs cannot be put where they 
would be desirable, especially on small work, the 
bunter screw may be used in a block as shown in 
Figure 63, which may be put in place and taken from 
the slot within frames or beds, without disturbing 
them or adjoining fixtures. 

These wrinkles come from Springfield, Mass. 

Setting riachine-Beds on Planers. To do this for 
the first planing so that there shall be no twist nor 
sag, and so that after planing the bed may be turned 
over on its newly-planed side and bear perfectly on the 
planer- table, is not always accomplished ; and where 
it is done it is not always done so easily as by the 
following method : 

Assume six points on its under surface; two, as A,B, 



70 SHOP KINKS AND 

in the center of the ends, and four, as C> D y E, F, 
at points on its sides near the ends. 

Provide six metal setting- wedges of equal dimen- 
sions. Raise the bed on two of them, placed at the 
end points A y B ; scribe a line on the upper surface of 
each, to mark where the end face of the bed comes, 
when the bed is level. Then insert wedges 0, D, E, 
JP, without driving ; scribe lines thereon coincident 




C D 

Fig. 64. — Setting Machine-Beds on Planers. 

with the side of the bed ; next drive C and F y taking 
the weight from A ; scribe lines on A, and scribe on 
each of these two a second line ; do the same with D 
and E as with C and F ; then take out C, Z>, E, and 
F, and scribe midway between the two lines on each, a 
third line ; drive all four of these side wedges up to 
the middle line on each. 

Planing Connecting=Rods. You don't seem to have 

quite struck the way to get these connecting-rods true 
in the way of alignment of side-faces and edges. Get 
a straight-edge longer than the entire rod ; apply it to 
one of the cheeks of the big end and note the distance 
between it and the cheek of the small end. Do the 
same thing with the other side ; then you will see 
whether or not the alignment is right. If the distances 
are unequal, one of the stub-ends is to one side of the 
center of the rod. Then apply the straight-edge to 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 71 

the wide face of the small end and let it lie on the 
narrow edge of the large end, scribing a line to show 
the amonnt by which the large end projects each side 
beyond the small one. Do the same thing with the 
other side. The two distances of offset should be 
equal . Then take two ' ' winding strips ' ' and lay them 
parallel, one on each wide face on one side of the rod ; 
sight them, and if they do not come in the same plane 
the faces are out of plane with each other. 

Hollow Planing. Once in a while there is a demand 
for a piece of hollow planing, as in locomotive con- 
necting-rods ; not radial planing, in which the curve 
is across the line of action of the tool> but hollow- 
planing in which the cut is required to be deeper at 
the middle of its length than towards the ends, the 
depth of cut lessening gradually and regularly from 
the center both ways. It is a more simple thing to 
do — when you know how ; and all the * t know how ' ' 
consists in blocking the piece up in the center so as 
to spring it vertically as much as the offset or rise of 
the required curvature, and then planing straight. 
On freeing the piece it will resume its straight outline 
and have the proper face-curve. 

This lengthwise curved planing may if desired be 
combined with radial planing, so as to give the face 
curvature in both directions. This method of work- 
ing is of course only adapted to pieces which are long 
enough in comparison with their thickness, to be 
sprung on the planer-bed. 

Planing Dead Straight. You cannot plane anything 
dead straight, nor can you turn anything perfectly 
round. You must resort to grinding or scraping, or 
both. You might as well give it up before you com- 
mence, if you have any ideas of turning round or 



72 SHOP KINKS AND 

planing flat. It is not in the nature of even the 
best of machine-tools to do it. 

Planing Large Cast=Iron Plates. As long as you go 
on in the way that you are, in planing up those big 
iron plates, you will not get one of them straight. 
You cast them about six feet by four, and an inch and 
a half thick, and then you plane off a thirty-second, 
and scrape them, and wonder that they are not flat. 
They mean to be flat, but they can't. You have 
taken off the skin from one side and that makes them 
curl ; and all the scraping and filing that you can put 
on them in two days will not make them be straight 
and stay straight. If you will take a thirty-second off 
what is to be the finished side and then one-sixteenth 
off the back and then turn and take another one-thirty- 
second off the face, you will find them in about the 
same condition of tension on both sides, and they will 
stay reasonably flat and straight ; then all that you 
have to do with your scraper is to correct any high 
spots that may exist by reason of the metal having 
been hard in spots and resisting the planer- tools. R. 
Hoe & Co. do this. You will save by doing intelli- 
gently by cheap labor on the planer, what you are 
now paying a high-priced man to do with infinite 
pains and skill against the heaviest odds. That man 
is a good bench-hand, and is doing his share of it with 
a skill which you will find to be very rare in these 
days ; but it is not his place (as he sees things) to tell 
you how you may dispense with about seven-eighths 
of his work and get the plates done in half the time 
that it now takes. 

By such gradual approach to finishing dimensions as 
I have mentioned, coupled with proper bolting down 
to the planer-bed, the largest plates may be made as 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



73 



perfectly plane as is demanded. They should be 
tried, after planing, with a slightly bellying file, held 
in a special holder ; and then given final finish as to 
surface, by the scraper. In such work good surface- 
plates should be used ; and these should be tested with 
each other and with a standard, which latter should 
never be used except for purposes of comparison. 

In Packing up Work on a Planer, instead of using 
blocks of this, that and the other size, and with thick 




Fig. 65.— Packing Up Work on a Planer. 

and thin pieces of this, that and the other stuff, why 
not make yourself some short jack-screws consisting 



74 



SHOP KINKS AND 



of a disk or flat-footed piece having in the center an 
upright bored out and threaded on the inside, and in 
which is a stout screw with a big head ? Such a rig 
as that will enable you to set pieces at any desired 
height, and always to get the same height ; also to get 
both ends or sides of the same piece at the same 
height. If you have a lug cast on one side of the 
post, and split the lug and the post you can use a 
pinching-screw to prevent any possible loss of adjust- 
ment. 

Adjustable Parallels. Wedges and "shims" (by 
the way this latter is a New England word and not 
much known south of New York) are sometimes 




Figs. 66 and 67. — Adjustable Parallels. 

very inconvenient in setting planer- work ; and their 
use may be very well superseded by adjustable paral- 
lels, which may be found in some of the Springfield 
shops. 



MA CHINE SHOP CHA T. 75 

One form of these adjustable parallels by which very 
accurate setting may be effected is shown in Figures 
66 and 67. The two slips A and B are tongued and 
grooved together, but along the tongue and the 
groove is a semicircular groove which is threaded 
part way along to receive a long adjusting-screw C 
by which B, which is the shorter of the two, may be 
given any desired amount of travel along A. The 
pitch of C and the angle of the pieces A and B being 
known, it is very easy to figure out how much 
advance one turn of C will give to B ; and A may be 
graduated on the edge with reference to this, so that 
the position of a zero- mark on B may indicate the 
total height of both pieces. 

Adjustable parallels are by no means new, but were 
invented by no less a person than James Watt, who 
by the way, invented also the letter- copying roller 
press and screw press. Only in the original form 
there was no screw, merely a series of notches into 
which a pin might be dropped. 

Planer Gage=Blocks. A good way of getting the 
proper height of a planer- tool is to have a lot of small 
cast-iron blocks planed and lapped to size and stamped 
on each face with the height of that face. There are 
many cases where such a set of blocks could be em- 
ployed, where neither scales, calipers nor surface- 
gages could be used with convenience. Blocks and 
plates running 1-32, 1-16, 3-32, J-, 5-16, and f inch 
will give all sizes up to ij inches in thirty-seconds of 
an inch ; blocks of 5-100, one, two, three and four- 
tenths inches will measure all sizes up to one inch 
in both tenths and half -tenths. Of course, in the 
larger sizes, each block may have three separate 
dimensions stamped, but the thin plates cannot so 



76 SHOP KINKS AND 

well be used in combination ; that is, a plate four 
inches by three and only 1-16 inch thick could not 
be well used with one two by one by 1-32, to show 
3 1-16 or 4 1-32 inches ; but one 1 by j- by \ inches 
could be well used with one 11- 16 by 9-16 by 7-16 to 
show 1 11-16, 1 9-16, 1 7-16, 1 5-16, 1 3-16, 1 1-16, 
and 15-16 inches in height. 

Cutting Internal Gears on a Planer. This may be 
done by casting the gear-blank with a spider attached, 
which may be driven on an ordinary mandrel, and 
bending the tool so as to cut on the side and also to 
stand out in front. Then the head -stock being bent 
down so as not to raise the tool when it is drawn 
back, the teeth may be nicely cut ; after which the 
rim may be separated from the spider. 

Cutting Gear-Wheels on the Slotter. To cut a gear- 
wheel of an unusual size, pitch, or tooth shape, some- 
times bothers the average shop, which is equipped 
only with the standard cutters such as are furnished 
by two or three firms that have had the good sense to 
make their system of tooth- curves uniform, so that 
every spur-wheel of the same pitch will mesh with 
every other made by the same set of cutters. Then 
again some shops have no large milling-machines ; 
some have none at all ; so even if they had the cutters 
they might not be able to use them. Again, it does 
not always pay to get a set of cutters for a job which 
may never have to be duplicated. 

For such work it is very often perfectly feasible to 
use a slottiug-machine with a cutter of the shape of 
the tooth-space. The wheel or rack blank is first 
carefully graduated into the requisite number of divi- 
sions (if there is no graduated chuck on the slotter); 
then is bolted fast to the slotter-bed or table and a 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 77 

scribe-mark made on trie latter to correspond with one 
of the division-marks on the edge of the wheel-blank. 
THen the tool is set to work nntil a tooth-space is 
cut ; the wheel is then turned or the rack slid along 
until the second division-mark on its periphery or 
edge is in exact line with the scribe-mark on the 
slotter-bed, a second space cut, and so on. 

It is well not to do all the work with one tool, but 
to have a rough cut taken for each space with a tool 
which will make the approximate outline, and then to 
finish off with one filed or ground exactly to the 
requisite form. 

For this class of work, as for many others, chilled 
cast-iron tools will be found very desirable, as they 
keep their shape and take greedy cuts, and may be 
made of a special outline such as that required for 
tooth-space cutting, more quickly and cheaply than 
by forging. 

Over=accuracy. At the Centennial there was a plat- 
form scale exhibited presided over by an attendant 
who weighed each person who wished it, and gave 
him or her a card on which his weight in pounds and 
ounces (and I am not sure but it was also in fractions 
of an ounce) was recorded as having been taken on 
the specified day, on the celebrated Blank & Co's 
standard scales. 

Now it happened that the scale-beam was notched 
only to quarter pounds. Still, it made the folks 
happy, and the matter seems to me now, as it did 
then, humorous, as an instance of overaccuracy. But 
it is not the only one across which I have come for a 
long time. For instance, in a gun- shop (using 
"gun" in the sense of cannon) the boring is con- 
ducted very much like a religious rite, in the attempt 



78 SHOP KINKS AND 

to get absolute accuracy in diameter and absolute 
straightness of bore. There are about as many steady- 
rests as trie law allows, in oider to obviate the possi- 
bility of any lack of straightness in the finished bore. 
But when the piece is mounted on its trunnions, its 
long tube projects out unsupported, and the muzzle 
droops, as a matter of course. 

The only way to get a gun-bore straight is to rotate 
the piece itself instead of the tool. 

In Boring Cylinders it is better to use three cutters 
than one or than two. With one cutter there is 
spring to the bar. With two the bar is less well 
supported than with three. One cutter will cause 
the hole to be smaller in the middle than at the ends 
of the cylinders ; and the surface of the metal will be 
rougher in the middle than at the ends of the 
cylinder. 

Boring Large Holes in a Cored Casting, where ac- 
curacy is required, it is not usually an easy matter ; 
yet in one shop at least (T. R. Almond's in Brook- 
lyn) there is an original method of doing good work 
and plenty of it, which I am glad to show you. 

The work, which is a sleeve, is held in a three- 
jawed chuck, gripped li short ;" a wooden disc being 
placed between it and the chuck to keep from cramp- 
ing ; then a guide or sleeve, bored to fit the work and 
also the reamer, is placed over both the latter and 
the reamer set to cutting. The cutters are ground 
perfectly square on the points ; the guide is about 
one one-thousandth inch larger than the reamer ; the 
hole bored being of the size of the hole in the sleeve 
instead of that of the reamer by reason of the tool 
having a tendency to * ' wander ' ' within the limits of 
the sleeve. The guide fits easily over the work and is 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



79 



firmly held until the cutter has fairly entered (say 
i- 1 6 inch) serving both to center the cutter and to 
steady the work. After once starting, the sleeve is 
raised (as shown in the second illustration), a small 
pin holding it above the upper cutter ; the two holes 




Figs. 68 and 69. — Boring Large Holes in a Cored Casting. 
(Almond.) 

are then finished at one cut and are found to be 
exactly in line. The bottom of the large hole is 
roughed out in the lathe before boring, to save the 
cutter ; the extra work being paid for in extra life of 
the tools 



8o 



SHOP KINKS AND 



Boring and Reaming in Two Hetals. To bore a 
hole in a piece, one side of which is of a different 
metal from the other, is difficult, especially when the 
circumferences of the two pieces are about equal. 
The softer side gets the larger diameter of hole, and 
reaming becomes necessary. This may be accom- 




Fig. 70.- 



■Dish-Faced Rose Bit for Reaming True 
Holes in Two Metals. 



plished by a dish-faced rose bit such as is shown in 
Figure 70, the dish having an angle of io° or 15 with 
the end, and being cut into seven teeth. Bore the 
job with a tool in the lathe tool -post until the hole 
only a trifle too large on the softer side ; then 



is 



chamfer the edge of the hole on the harder side with 
a file, up to the proper size, and go in with the dished 
rose bit and plenty of oil. 

For Boring Long, Deep Holes that do not go clear 
through the pieces so as to permit of using a boring- 
bar, use a tool having right back of it a set-screw 
which may be run out so as to touch the opposite 
side of the bore from the one the tool is working on ; 
and have half-way between these two, so as to touch 
the circumference of the bore-hole ninety degrees from 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



81 



the tool and also ninety degrees from the first screw, 
a similar screw which may be adjusted so that the 
tool will be held central and the hole kept straight. 
If the job be such as to permit the hole being bored 
vertically, there will be no trouble about getting out 




Figs. 71 and 72.— For Boring Long Deep Holes. 

the borings or having them crowd under either of 
the set-screws ; but if it must be a horizontal job, 
the tool must be rigged so that one of the screws 
shall be at the top, and the other at one side, the tool 
being on the other side. 

A Guide=Box for a Boring=Bar, arranged so as to be 
adapted to bars of various sizes, is shown in Figure 
73. It is used on the bottom plate of a drill-press, 
below the spindle. It is fitted so as to exclude dirt 
and chips, and consists of two bushings, one within 
the other, and both contained in an outside box or 
shell F. The outside bushing is plain and kept 
stationary by a set-screw at G ; there is therefore no 
wear on the shell F. The inner bushings are bored 
to suit different sizes of bar. They have feather keys 



82 



SHOP KINKS AND 



and are kept from lifting out by a set -screw running 
in a groove in the bushing. This inside bushing is 
flanged on top, covering over the inside bush and 



OIL 
SCREW 




Fig. 73. — Guide-Box for Boring-Bar. (Riehles.) 

joints, and both rest on a shoulder corresponding 
with the bottom flange of the outside shell. This 
apparatus has proved very satisfactory to the Riehle 
Bros., in whose shops it originated. 

Boring=Bar. At the Atlantic Works, Philadelphia, 
I found a good boring-bar consisting of a weldless 
steel tube mortised for the cutters ; one end having 
a shank for the machine, the other end threaded 



Fig. 74. —Boring-Bar. (Atlantic Works.) 

inside for a lengthwise screw, as shown in the illus- 
tration. Between the mortises are short lengths of 
steel rod, as long as between the mortises. The 
cutters have no taper ; they are held by jamming in 
the central line of the bar, by the set-screw and the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 83 

rods. This rig cannot spring as is often the case 
where taper cutters are jammed by wedges. A tube 
15-16 inch outside diameter bores an inch hole. 
Once closed up, the inner rods are never removed. 

Boring=Bar Standards. In Mr. Geo. C. Howard's 
shops in Philadelphia, they have a regular set of 
standards for the slots, cutters, and keys for boring- 
bars. These I give, as many shops have none, and 
it is better and cheaper to have them : 

Slot or mortise, 3-16 the bar diameter. 

Slot-length, the bar-diameter. 

Cutter- width, 13-16 the bar-diameter. 

Small end of the key, 3-16 square the diameter of 
the bar. 

Taper end of the key, one inch per foot. 

Key-length, the same as the bar-diameter. 

Thus for a one-inch bar the slot is 3-16 by 1 inch ; 
the cutter 13-16 by 13-16 inch. 

Drill=Racks on DrilUPresses. A great convenience 
about a radial drill-press is a rack for the drills, fast- 
ened on the sleeve to which the radial arm is 
attached. A drill rack in this position is always in 
reach of the workman, and the drills are kept in 
better condition in this way than if laid down to get 
knocked against each other or against other things — 
to say nothing of their getting scattered or lost. 

DrilNPress Heads. A convenient way of having 
the sliding heads of drill-presses secured to the column 
is by a lever and eccentric, tightening a bolt fitting 
into a T slot in the face of the column — thus doing 
away with the necessity of a wrench for bolt- 
tightening. 

Increasing the Span of a Drill=Press Arm, as for 



84 SHOP KINKS AND 

drilling or boring holes at a great distance from the 
edge of a plate or table, may be done by snch a device 
as is shown in Figure 75. In this case the sleeve C is 
slipped over the rack-spindle and clamped fast, while 
D is fitted and screwed tight to the driving- spindle. 



Fig. 75. — Increasing Span of Drill Press Arm. (Riehles.) 

By gearing this to the drill-socket spindle E, the 
rotation is extended to a distance equal to the distance 
between socket-centers. In this case it is necessary 
either to cross the belt of the press, or to use left- 
handed drills and boring- cutters. This is from the 
practice of Riehle Bros. 

For riaking Hand=Holes and man-holes in a hurry, 
as for special tank work, there is often a good deal 
of delay by marking out the outline of a more or less 
perfect ellipse (misscalled an oval) and then, having 
drilled from forty to seventy-five holes all around it, 
chipping out the metal within the drill-holes. The 
same general effect can be done much more quickly 
and more cheaply, by slotting the end of a drill- 
spindle and passing through it a turned-down tool, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 85 

setting this so as to cut a circle of say three inches 
diameter, and cutting out two such holes five inches 
apart, the line joining their diameters being in the 
line of the longest axis of the desired man-hole. Then 
changing the setting of the tool so as to cut out a 
circle five inches in diameter, and, centering this 
half way between the centers of the other circles, 
cutting out a third hole, the projecting metal on each 
side may be chipped away in a gentle curve that is 
tangent to the circular arcs, and the resulting hole 
will be near enough to shape and smooth enough in 
outline for all practical purposes. 

A similar principle may be applied to laying out 
the plate, with three circles of two radii, whether the 
plate is to be run inside and held by an arch-piece to 
a single central bolt, or by bolts all around this rim. 

Drill=Chucks. One form of drill-chuck which is 
not patented and is recommended by many, is for 
straight-shanked drills, having one flat side parallel 
with the axis. The hole in the socket is punched 
hot and turned true with the hole. A thumb-screw 
holds the drill in place. Another way is with a flat 
side to the drill, tapering about one-eighth inch per 
inch ; and the socket has a hole by which the drill 
may be forced out by a drift. 

DriIl=Chucks that screw to the spindles usually take 
more time and make more trouble in screwing them 
on and off than they should. This trouble may be 
lessened by dividing the thread part on the spindles 
into four equal parts, cutting away half the thread 
on two opposite quarters, then doing the same thing 
with the thread in the chuck. This will permit the 
chuck to be put on and made fast by a single quarter- 
turn. 



86 



SHOP KINKS AND 



Facing Large Work in the Drill=Press. A cross- 
slide attachment for doing this is shown in Figure 
76, which is taken from the practice of the Riehle 
Bros. Testing Machine Co. It is attached to the 




Fig. 76 - Facing Large Work on the Drill Press Arm. (Riehles.) 

drill-press spindle at the hub-socket A. A hand- 
wheel, or spur-wheel, can be used for feeding the 
tool-holder B across the slide ; the tools, of square 
steel, being readily clamped in the square sockets. 

Ball-Handle Drilling Fixture. A ball crank-handle 
such as is used on a lathe slide-rest is not a very con- 
venient thing to drill ; and when there are several of 
them to be drilled you might find it well to try Mr. 
Peter Schellenbeck's way. He makes a frame A 
long enough to take in the ball-handle and having 
two center-point set-screws BB on which he suspends 
the ball-handle itself. Then he makes a thimble e, 
threaded outside and bored through the center to cor- 
respond with a hole through the small ball of the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



87 



handle. A hole is tapped through the frame A, and 
threaded to take in the thimble e. By adjusting the 
screws BB ) the ball d can be brought exactly central 
with the thimble e when the latter is in place. There 
is another thimble F ) also coned out at one end to 
take in a ball, and also threaded outside; the slotted 
hole through the frame A is larger than the diameter 




Fig. 77. — Handle-Drilling Fixture. (Schellenbeck.) 

of F to enable it to slip through and also have some 
motion lengthwise of A ; and jam nuts / are used on 
F to hold it in place when it is centered on the 
middle ball G. The frame A is planed at such 
points JJ as will enable the drilling to be done 
accurately. 

Clamping Flanges, etc. It often happens that it is 
desirable to clamp two flanges or other pieces to- 
gether temporarily, as while drilling bolt-holes mark- 
ing the position of bolt-hole centers in one piece to 
correspond with those in the other, etc. To do this 
there may be used any one of a number of devices, 
some of which are here shown. 

The first, illustrated in Figure 78, consists of a pair 
of pincer-like clamps having a movable fulcrum by 



88 



SHOP KINKS AND 



which the lever-age may be altered. There are two 
jaws, A and B, exactly alike, and each having 
ronnded notches in which there may engage a link 
of rectangular outline and round cross section, C. 
The jaws are corrugated or toothed so as to prevent 
slipping ; and the handles are pressed together (which 
causes the jaws also to be pressed together) by a 






rS\ 



vi 



Fig. 78 to 82. — Clamping Flanges, Etc. 



pair of wooden wedges WW. For these, a screw 
may be substituted. These will clamp flanges that 
have no holes at all in them, and does not take up 
much room crosswise. 

Where the bolt-holes are already in the flanges, 
the slight device shown in Figure 79 will answer ad- 
mirably, consisting of a bolt with a large head and 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



89 



slotted stem, through which there is thrust a thin 
wide cutter C. This may be used with or without 
washers, according to the thickness of the flanges. 

Figure 80 shows a modification of this. Instead of 
there being a slot through the shank of the bolt, 
there is only a series of round holes, through any 
desired one of which there may be thrust a round 
pin ; and wedges driven between this pin and the 
lower flange will tighten up the hole. 

Figure 81 shows the ordinary screw clamp which 
may be used with or without plugs between it and 
the flanges ; and Figure 82 is the same thing used 
without any screw, wooden wedges taking the place 
of the latter. 

Starting=Drill. Before you start to drill a hole in 
solid metal, you will find that an angular starting- 
tool about like this sketch will come in handy. 



<^ 






I 1 1 




\ 



Fig. 83.— Starting Drill. 

Clamp it in the tool-post and true up the end of the 
work about the size of the drill ; then when you start 
your drill proper it will be more apt to run true. 

Centering=Drill. At the Atlantic Works, Philadel- 
phia, there was produced some time ago a centering- 
drill shown in figure 84 and consisting of a round 
piece of steel ground to a point and slit up axially ; 
then placed in the lathe and ground with the appa- 
ratus used for grinding the lathe- centers in position. 



90 



SHOP KINKS AND 



The spring of the points due to the slit and to the 
pressure of grinding, causes the cutting edges to 
twist, taking the shape shown in the cross section ; 
and when turned in the direction in which it was 
ground it countersinks very smoothly. When fed 




Fig. 84. — Centering Drill. (Atlantic Works.) 

too hard the points close together and the drill ceases 
to cut ; but this can easily be avoided. Its advan- 
tages are that it does not chatter, and may be sharp- 
ened very readily without changing its shape. 

Twist Drills in Sheet Brass sometimes have a habit 
of leaving a feather edge at the back of the hole. Mr. 
Wm. Wilkinson, of Philadelphia, states that they 
will pass through more easily and leave less feather 

AB 




Fig. 85.— Twist Drill for Sheet Brass. (Wilkinson.) 

edge if the front of the flute is ground back as from 
A to the dotted line B in Figure 85, also if the end 
faces CD are given more angle than for wrought or 
other iron. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 91 

Drills for Working Hardened Steel. Once in a 
while you want to drill a piece of hardened steel or 
of chilled iron (in the regular line of business; not 
necessarily with burglarious intent) and then you 
often find that you have run into a stumbling-block. 
If the material is not excessively hard, try hard- 
ening in mercury (I have pierced files with a drill 
thus hardened) ; or you may try a ' ( self-hardening ' ' 
brand, some of which cannot be cut, filed or punched 
cold, but is easily shaped cold on a grindstone or 
emery-wheel without destroying its temper, and by 
heating it, may be cut or forged to any shape. 
While hot or warm you must be careful not to dip it 
in water or other liquid. In forging it, it must be 
heated slowly and thoroughly to a bright red, and 
kept evenly hot. In drawing to shape it should have 
frequent heats. You must take care not to hammer 
it too cold nor to allow it to get down to a black heat 
while forging. After shaping, it must cool slowly in 
the air until perfectly cold, and on no account be 
dipped in water. 

As Regards the Best Form of Drill for this Work 
there are those who consider that the ordinary twist 
drill is not a desirable implement with which to do it. 
One drill which has been highly spoken of for this 
purpose is endorsed by its originator, a Mr. Sharp, 
of Omaha, and is made by grinding the cutting edge 
of a twist drill as near as possible like a flat drill. 
This machinist thinks that for drilling tool steel, 
however, there is nothing like a plain flat drill. 

Drilling in Glass. The Yale & Towne Manufact- 
uring Co. has occasion to drill 7-16 inch holes in 
glass J-inch thick. This is done by using No. 5 H 
emery, with water instead of oil of turpentine as a 



92 SHOP KINKS AND 

lubricant. The workman can do 30 to 40 holes per 
hour; the drill running 2000 turns per minute and 
the tool being a tube, of which about an inch is used 
up for every 40 holes. The emery must be kept 
well washed and clean, with the dust resulting from 
the abrasion of the glass removed therefrom. 

Drilling Long Holes. Many who have essayed to 
drill long holes with the hog- nosed drill have wished 
that they had never been born. The principal fun 
comes in when the drill has been withdrawn and the 
cuttings washed out, when by reason of the contraction 
of the metal in the shaft the drill will not enter to the 
bottom again. Tying waste around the shaft and 
keeping everything flooded with water helps things 
along by keeping cool, but has its material and moral 
disadvantages. A better way yet is to weld a twist- 
drill of ordinary length on a steel rod of less diameter 
(say a J-inch rod for a 17-32 -inch drill) using no 
more oil than is absolutely necessary on the drill 
itself to keep it from cutting the sides. This dry 
drilling enables the removal of the chips better then 
where it is attempted to flood them out with oil. 

For Splicing Drills— as where a hole has to be bored 
that requires drills from five to twenty times as long 
as the ordinary drill is, although the drill-hole itself 
does not require to be of excessive depth — take a 
piece of wrought iron or soft steel rod about double 
the drill-diameter, make in its end a hole with the 
drill itself, absolutely parallel with the axis of 
the rod, and about four drill-diameters deep, cool 
the drill-shank (assumed to be cylindrical) and heat 
the drilled rod-end ; insert the drill-shank in the hole, 
absolutely parallel with the axis, and you will have 
a shrink fit which will be firm enough to hold the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 93 

drill, yet which can be made to let go when you are 
through with the job and want the drill again. 

Accurate Drilling. In the average shop, when a 
workman has a hole to drill he makes his cross-marks 
on a chalked surface with a scriber, then takes a 
prick-punch and marks a center (which may or may 
not correspond with the exact intersection of the cross- 
marks) , scribes a circle, takes his punch and makes 
four prick-marks as nearly as he can on the circle, 
and then proceeds to drill the hole ; drilling away 
these prick-marks. The chances are about even up 
that he will not get the hole properly centered ; also 
that if it is wrong that fact does not appear. 

In the Bilgram shops, the circle is scribed a trifle 
larger than the hole is to be, and deep enough not to 
be obliterated by the chips ; no prick-marks are made, 
and the workman is compelled to drill inside the 
circle, using the latter itself for the " witness. n 

This is much better to drill to than the four marks, 
made with greater or less (usually less) accuracy to 
represent where a circle is or was ; and when the hole 
is drilled, the circle, being still visible, shows whether 
or not the hole is in the proper position, and if it is 
not, how much " out " it is. 

Twist=Drill Clearance. If the clearance of a twist- 
drill is not perfect, the drill will not cut ; the applica- 
tion of power to force it to cut will either crush or 
split it. The proper angle for the cutting-edge is 59 . 

DriIl=Speed. The Cleveland Twist Drill Co. got 
tired of having people use its drills at the wrong 
speed and then complaining that they did not give 
satisfaction ; so it compiled a table showing how fast 
drills should be used. For steel the speed is natural- 
ly slower, and for brass faster, than for iron ; and 



94 SHOP KINKS AND 

when using the drills in steel, wrought iron or malle- 
able iron it will be necessary to use plenty of oil, or a 
solution of oil, potash and water. The speeds run 
for iron, from 1750 for 1-16 inch, through 220 
for \ inch, 90 for inch, 55 for ij inch, 45 for 
2 inch, and 30 for 3 inch. For brass, 2000 for 
1 1-16 inch, 375 for \ inch, 145 for inch, 100 for 
1 J inch, 55 for 2 inch, 35 for 3 inch; and for steel, 
1 150 for 1 1-16 inch, 145 for J inch, 60 for inch, 
45 for 1 1 inch, 30 for 2 inch, and 20 for 3 inch. 
For other sizes the speeds come in the same propor- 
tion — not a regular proportion, but one having a slid- 
ing ratio: — thus for iron, 1 inch has 90, y 2 inch 220, 
and 2 inch 45. 

Oiling Long Drills. Sometimes it is necessary to 
make a very long drill-hole of comparatively small 
diameter ; and in doing this work goes bravely on for 
the first few feet, but after that there is not only the 
trouble of backing out to get rid of the chips, but the 
nuisance of having to oil the cutting portion. In the 
Pratt & Whitney shops the latter trouble is done away 
with by forming along the drill a flute or channel, 
straight or spiral, according as the drill is or is not of 
the twist type ; and then by brazing in a strip of brass, 
closing up this channel externally so that it acts as a 
duct for oil, while at the same time not catching any 
chips. Externally it is turned off true with the out- 
side surface of the drill itself, so that it offers no ob- 
struction in working. Oil is forced in, and comes 
out with the chips. 

This is not a cheap tool to make, but it is much 
cheaper to use it than to have the tool break in the 
hole. 

By the way, a propos of long drilling, Bement & 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



95 



Miles in making a small 35-foot long hole (three- 
fonrths inch in diameter) through a cutter-bar for 
" Uncle Sam," ran in 17J feet from each end, the 
two bores meeting in the middle and being only one- 
thirty-second of an inch out of axial exactness. The 
object in this case was merely to lighten the bar. 

Drilling Holes in Water=riains While They are Full 
is one of the unusual jobs that a machinist sometimes 
gets for the first time without being exactly settled 



W/yr% 



% $fJ>> A,,, % 







Fig. 86.— Drilling Holes in Water Mains. 

in his mind as to how it is to be done. Figure 86 
shows in a general way one way of accomplishing it, 
and needs very little explanation. There is a clamp 



96 SHOP KINKS AND 

which surrounds the main and which has on one side 
a boss which is bored and tapped for a male thread 
on the side of a cock, the plug on the upper side of 
the shell of which is bored exactly the diameter of 
the drill which is to be used. The plug being 
"open," the drill is inserted in the hole in the 
side of the shell and through the plug, the ratchet 
and * i old man ' ' or other appliances are ^put in 
place, and the work of drilling in the side of the 
pipe itself is commenced. When the drill has gone 
clear through, as may readily be told by the leakage 
or by other signs, the ratchet is removed (the plug 
will come out by the pressure on its end unless this 
latter is comparatively slight) and the plug turned 
by a wrench previously applied to the squared 
end. Then the service-piping may be connected to 
the body of the cock, which is kept in place by the 
clamp-ring. Of course this latter has packing 
between it and the side of the main ; sheet lead or 
copper answering well. 

" Horse " and " American " Tapers. There are still 
shops which have twist-drills and sockets of the old 
* ' American ' ' taper, and sometimes it is bothersome 
to work them in with the u Morse, M as the Ameri- 
can is 9-16 inch to the foot, and the Morse is ■§ inch ; 
the two not interchanging in the same sockets up to 
1 J inches diameter, although they do from 1 9-32 
inch to 2 inch, inclusive. 

Drilling Square Holes. I have recently heard a 
story which reminds me very much of the condition 
of affairs at Ridley's shop. A little girl, very much 
excited, ran into the parlor, which was full of com- 
pany, and exclaimed "Mamma, just think of it, n 
( ' Think of what, darling ?" " Our cat has a whole 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 97 

lot of twins, and I didn't even know she was 
married ! ' ' 

Ridley is very much excited over a new machine 
for boring square holes with a rotating tool, when, as 
a matter of fact, he has been doing the same thing for 
years on about every seventh job that has come into 
the shop. There isn't a drill-press in his place that 
is not full of lost motion ; and the result is that the 
spindles wabble at a great rate, and never make a 
round hole unless luck is dead in his favor. 

Now the square-hole machine is only a develop- 
ment of the wabbling drill-press idea. Ridley has 
been brought up to the idea that square holes cannot 
be drilled by a rotating tool, and that something in 
the way of a drill, or of a slotting-tool, is required to 
make them. But here he has been making them, in 
away, ever since his drill-press commenced to get 
out of truth, and that is over twenty-five years to my 
knowledge, for it is over that length of time since I 
first used to peep in and wonder how mechanics 
could work in the dark. 

Cutting Teeth in Large Quadrants. In almost 
every shop there is an odd job, not suitable in size 
or some other requirement for the tools at command ; 
and to avoid getting an extra machine some special 
fixture is made and adapted to a machine in stock. 
Such a problem confronted the Riehle Bros. Testing 
Machine Co. in the requirement to cut teeth in a 
quadrant of a 48-inch gear. One milling-machine 
being usually busy on small gears, a plain (not uni- 
versal) milling-machine was adapted to cut this 
large diameter quadrant, which was of narrow face 
and light in casting. As shown in Figure 87 there 
is a T-iron base-frame or box, in which is pivoted 



9 S 



SHOP KINKS AND 



the stud " I." On this stud rotates a worm-wheel 
having the same number of teeth as the gear to be 
cut. This gear has a sleeve to which is clamped the 
gear or quadrant to be cut, fastened by the nut 2. A 
bracket 3 carries the worm-shaft with the operating 
crank. One turn of the crank advances the gear to 
be cut the proper pitch-distance, and a pin at the 
point 3 of the bracket answers as a stop at which to 
rest the crank at each turn. The nut 4 on the stud 




1.-. 



Fig. 87. — Cutting Teeth in Large Quadrants. (Riehles.) 

is alternately tightened and ' released as the tooth is 
cut, and then shifted to the next space. 5 and 6 are 
simple washers to admit of adjustment and antifric- 
tion. 7 is the milling-cutter ; which in this case is 
fed down by hand through the tooth, the depth of 
the latter being regulated by the cross-slide, which is 
clamped fast when once set. To look at the milling- 
machine without this fixture, you would not feel en- 
couraged to try to cut a gear of such large diameter. 
Inserted=Tooth Hilling- Cutters. While going 
through the shops of the Brown & Sharpe Manufact- 
uring Co. I saw a good many things which are not to 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 99 

be met with in the majority of machine-shops in this 
country. Among them was a form of milling-cutter 
with insertable teeth, the hub or center in which they 
were held being of cast-iron arranged to be keyed to 
an arbor and having on its circumference half as many 
spaces as there are to be inserted teeth. The fronts 
and backs of the projections forming or formed by 
the spaces are milled off smooth and radial, and the 
teeth, which have full fronts and backs, are slipped 




Figs. 88 and 89. — Tnserted-Tooth Milling-Cutters. 
(Brown & Sharpe.) 

in in pairs so that the front of one fits against the 
back of one projection, and the back of the one direct- 
ly behind it comes against the front of the projection 
next back. This leaves a wedge-shaped space 
between the back of the front tooth of the pair and 
the front of the back one. Into this there is slipped 
a wedge-shaped piece of cast iron, which is bored 
lengthwise to receive a screw that enters the hub or 
center radially and which, on being tightened up, 
draws the wedge towards the center of the hub and 



ioo SHOP KINKS AND 

crowds the inserted teeth against the projections. 
The amount of projection of the teeth may be varied 
by packing-pieces of paper, as for instance when 
after grinding they have become slightly shorter, or 
if it be desired to give every other one a trifle extra 
working depth. 

Cutters thus made have the advantages that they 
are much cheaper in first cost than solid cutters ; that 
the form of the teeth may be altered at will, each 




Figs. 90 and 91. — Inserted-Tooth Milling-Cutters. 
(Brown & Sharpe.) 

cast-iron hub or center having if desired several sets 
of teeth of varying profile or width ; and the breaking 
of any one of the teeth does not ruin the entire tool. 
The sharpening, also, may be done most efficiently 
with minimum trouble, and calls for less skill and 
simpler appliances than the grinding of the solid 
cutters. 

A front view of such cutters is shown in Figure 88, 
and a side view in Figure 89. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



101 



A variation of application of this principle is seen 
in Figures 90 and 91, in which there is but one tooth 
for each space between the projections ; and the teeth 
are held in by radial screws passing through conical 
steel thimbles relieved on one side and passing 
through the projections so as to lock the teeth in 
place. 

In both styles the hub is keyed to the arbor of the 
milling-machine in the ordinary fashion. 

Other cutters, not from the Brown & Sharpe shops, 
are shown below. 





Figs. 92 and 93.— Inserted-Tooth Milling-Cutters. 

Figures 92 and 93 show another form of inserted- 
tooth mills having keyways in the arbor-hole and 
the teeth held endwise by screws tapped in the 
body below the mill. Cuts are made for the dove- 
tail inserted teeth, and having the heads of the screws 
bear against shoulders formed in the ends of the mill- 
teeth, so that their overhanging ends can make 
radial cuts without having the screw-heads in the 
way. At one end of the hub these screws are 



102 SHOP KINKS AND 

screwed down hard on the hub ; at the other the hub 
is countersunk for the heads so that the screw-head 
bears on the end of the mill- tooth. 





Figs. 94 and 95. — Inserted-Tooth Milling-Cutters. 

Figures 94 and 95 show inserted-tooth cutters 
having parallel sides put in straight radial cuts in 
the hub. The teeth slide in the grooves ; and about 
midway of the hub-depth there are taper holes 
reamed to receive ordinary taper pins as keys. 

Adjustable Cutters for Grooving. There are many 
jobs of plane work for which it often does not pay to 
make a special milling-cutter, so they are done on 
the planer, although not so well. It is, however, 
possible to have some cutters that can do a variety 
of work, or at least which will work to more than 
one size. Of course every one is familiar with the 
"built-up" cutter for OG and similar work, and 
knows that more than one combination may be made 
of the sections of such cutters, in shops having much 
milling to do ; but I have not seen in as many shops 
as I should ' ( packed out ' ' cutters like that shown 
here in the sketch, by which several widths, without 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 



103 



a certain range, may be milled by only changing the 
packing. 

The two parts (which need not be alike) have 
their faces on one side at right angles to the axis, 
and the other, inclined at an angle of say ten degrees. 
The thick or wider side of one and the thin or narrow 
side of the other being brought together on the axis, 
with a packing-piece of leather or other material 
between them, the cutter will mill a width equal to 




Fig. 96. —Adjustable Cutters for Grooving. 



the sum of the widths of the thick and the thin face, 
plus the thickness of the packing. The narrowest 
that this combination will mill is equal to the width 
of the two when put together without packing ; and 
the widest cut that they will make is equal to 
that, plus very nearly the difference between the 
wide and the narrow side. That is, if the cutters 
are alike and have widths of three inches and one 
inch respectively, of adjacent cutting-faces, they will 



104 SHOP KINKS AND 

mill four inches as a minimum and very nearly six 
as a maximum ; the range between varying by an 
amount as small as the thickness of a single sheet of 
paper. 

Another way of doing this is shown by Brown & 
Sharpe, and has the advantage that the combined 
thickness of the two cutters is rather more than the 
width of the groove which they cut, because their 
teeth are arranged " staggering. ' ' Hard tracing- 
paper is good as a packing between them to take up 
wear. 

Machine=Steel nilling=Cutters. One of the most 
expensive items about a shop may be made that of 
making and sharpening milling-cutters ; mounting 
up to the thousands of dollars in a very short time 
in a shop of any magnitude ; and their cost is greatly 
increased by not only the high price but the un- 
certainty of quality of tool steel. The problem in 
their manufacture and maintenance then is to pro- 
duce that cutter which shall take off the most pounds 
of material with the least cost for manufacture of the 
cutter, for maintaining this last at the requisite 
degree of sharpness and at the proper outline and 
dimensions, and for driving it; as dull cutters or 
those of poor steel may prove uneconomical by reason 
of the power that they take to drive them, and the 
time of the machine and tender that they consume. 
In the Newton shops, I find that they are gradually 
abandoning the use of tool steel and taking to that 
of crucible machine steel, case-hardened. Such cut- 
ters and reamers are of course much cheaper to make 
than those of tool steel, while their cut is more 
greedy. 

MilIing=Cutters for Heavy Work. To make milling- 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 105 

cutters fordoing heavy work having no curved outlines, 
and take greedy cuts, and at the same time not to go 
to too great expense in the matter, make a hub ol 
wrought iron a trifle smaller than the external diam- 
eter of a regular milling-cutter ; bore its periphery 
full of radial holes one-half inch in diameter, ar- 
ranged in parallel circles seven- eighths inch apart, the 
holes in the odd circles alternating or staggering 
with those in the even ones ; and having all the holes 
of the standard depth (say two inches), properly 
bottomed. Then make a number of round tool-steel 
rods one- half inch in diameter and two and one-half 
inches long, to be inserted in the holes in the hub. 
Grind off the end of each at a bevel, giving all the 
same bevel and leaving them all of the same length. 
These, if given the proper cutting-angle, will, on 
being inserted in the holes in the hub, constitute 
cutters, the work of which will lap so as to give a 
smooth continuous cut. In order to insure that each 
cutter in each circle gets the same amount of 
work as all the others in that circle, they may be 
snipped over with an emery-wheel while the hub 
rotates. These same cutting-pins may be used in a 
number of hubs, so that you can have the ad- 
vantage of a number of large cutters without the 
expense of forging, profiling and hardening such 
large masses. 

Coarse=Toothed Cutters are often very desirable ; 
they can be sharpened readily without drawing the 
temper and every cutting-edge can be made to cut 
faster ; there is not so much sliding and rubbing as 
there are many teeth. In fact, where there is a great 
number of teeth, there is often a certain burnishing 
down of the metal by them, which makes it all the 



106 SHOP KINKS AND 

harder to cut. Of course the cheapness of a cutter 
having two to four teeth is a great advantage ; and 
sometimes such a cutter can be made and the job 
done in less time than it would take to make a com- 
plete circular mill. Hnd-cutting tools should have 
fewer teeth than those which cut on their sides. 

Spiral Flutes in Milling Cutters. Very often when 
a milling-cutter fails to come up to the expectations 
of the man who made it or designed it, the stock is 
complained of as being soft or unequal, when it is 
only the form of teeth (for they may be called so) 
or the number and disposition of flutes, which causes 
the trouble. 



A C B D 





Fig. 97. — Spirally-Grooved Milling-Cutters. 

In the Newton Machine Tool Works, after making 
many experiments on cylindrical cutters for slabbing, 
one was found which at first gave great promise of 
long, hard work. It was made with flutes parallel 
with the axis, and then each flute was cut up by 
spiral channels so that the entire tool presented a 
number of lozenge-shaped teeth arranged about its 
circumference in parallel spirals ; the teeth being 
probably three-eighths inch lengthwise of the cutter 
and the spiral channels one-fourth inch wide ; while 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 107 

the parallel flutes were about one-fourth inch wide and 
one-half inch between centers. It would be supposed 
that such a cutter would mill right along sweetly 
without hitch or mark ; but as a matter of fact it left 
very perceptible ridges. This was doubtless because 
the spacing was too regular. Another form was 
tried (like the former), of case-hardened crucible 
machine-steel, with parallel flutes as before, but 
instead of the teeth being divided by regular spiral 
channels, they were somewhat irregularly divided by 
cuts which formed nowhere a complete nor a regular 
spiral. The result was very greedy cutting without 
being marred by lines as before. See Figure 98. 
This is probably somewhat on the same principle 





Fig. 98. — Milling-Cutters. (Newton Machine-Tool Works.) 

that hand-cut files are considered (without usually as- 
signing any reason) to do better work than machine- 
cut ; because the latter as usually made (in fact as made 
by all manufacturers except perhaps the Nicholson 
Co.) are too regularly spaced; and the matter also 
calls to mind the fact that taps with an even number 
of flutes, regularly spaced, do not do so good work as 
those with an odd number, spaced a very trifle out of 
symmetry. 

Using Oil on nilling=riachines. When you use oil 



108 SHOP KINKS AND 

on a milling- machine with a reciprocating table like 
a planer, there is often some difficulty in getting the 
oil conveyed away properly to the source of supply 
in order that it may be used over again. If a rubber 
tube is used, we all know what will become of it 




Fig. 99 — Flexible Metal Oil- Tube. (Almond.) 

before the oil has been passing through it long. A 
rigid tube is not practicable, let it be ever so well 
jointed. But I found in Brooklyn a flexible metal 
tube intended for an entirely different purpose, and on 
suggesting that it be used on a u monitor ' ' lathe to 
convey the oil to the cutting point of the tool, I 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 109 

found that it had already been used for conveying it 
away both to and from the work. Figure 99 shows 
the arrangement by which the oil is dripped in fine 
streams all the width of the work ; then the flexible 
metal tube carries it away to be pumped up again. 
For a monitor lathe there would be needed a flexible 
tube above, which would travel with the turret, and a 
rigid tube to convey the oil away from the lathe-bed 
to the reservoir. 

Lubricant for Hilling-Cutters. All sorts of mix- 
tures are used for milling- cutters ; none of them are 
any too carefully applied. One that is well recom- 
mended is made by taking 10 pounds of whale-oil 
soap, 15 of sal-soda, and 2 gallons of the best lard 
oil ; shaving the soap so that it will dissolve readily, 
putting the whole in a clean forty-gallon cask and 
rilling with water. When thoroughly dissolved it is 
ready for use. 

Holding flilling=Cutters. Where you have milling- 
cutters with cylindrical ends, you may hold them 
while in the machine by means of a chucking-stem 
consisting of a taper shank fitting the hole in the 
machine spindle, and having an enlargement bored to 
receive the cylindrical cutter- shank, slotted through 
to enable it to be driven out, threaded at the back to 
receive a ring, and split in three at the end. Screw- 
ing up the ring clamps the cylindrical cutter-stem. 

To fiill Cuts in the Rim of a Wheel, with the sides of 
the cut at equal angles with the radius, and to do the 
work with a cutter of the proper bevel, but having a 
face at right-angles with its axis, offset and lower the 
work so that a radial line along the work at the point 
to be cut will bisect the angle of the cutter ; then merely 



no SHOP KINKS AND 

raising the table will feed the work into the cntter at 
the proper angle, and the cnt will be properly divided 
each side of the radial line. 

Axial Reaming. Where it is necessary to ream two 
holes which have considerable space between them, 
bnt mnst be in absolute axial alignment — as in the 
case of bearings on the opposite sides of a machine- 
frame — they employ in the Hugo Bilgram shops a 
method which I have never seen elsewhere and which 
produces excellent results. The holes are first reamed 
nearly to size ; then, the frames being set up parallel 
in proper position, the reaming is finished in situ ; 
each hole is made the point of support for the reamer 




Fig. ioo. — Axial Reaming. 

while it is reaming the opposite hole, and it is drawn 
through instead of being forced through ; that is, the 
reamer is worked backwards. Its form is about as 
shown in Figure ioo: A being the cutting portion 
(of the "shell" type), B the shank, D the squared 
end, and Oa tapered bushing, the small end of which 
is of the diameter of the unfinished and the large end 
that of the finished hole ; the distance between C and 
A being slightly in excess of that between the frames. 
The tool is of course sectional. This insures accurate 
alignment. 

Hilling vs. Planing. The general tendency of 
machine work is to substitute rotary for reciprocating 
(to-and fro) motion and rotary for stationary tools. 
We have the circular saw instead of the gate-saw, the 
rotating emery-wheel instead of the reciprocating file, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. in 

the rotary planer for many grades of work (especially 
facing) instead of the planer with reciprocating bed ; 
and now we have milling-machines especially con- 
structed to take the place of the planer with station- 
ary tool, for very heavy cuts, even in flat surfacing or 
slabbing. One of these machines at the Watts- 
Campbell shops is reported by Mr. Arnold as taking 
2§ inches per minute feed steadily and a cut 18 inches 
wide in cast iron, the depth being about three-eighths 
inch. 

Hilling Spirals. If you have a milling-machine 
without a swiveling table, and have occasion to mill 
a spiral, all that is necessary is to set the centers at 
the required angle on the platen ; or if the platen is 
not wide enough, make a boiler-iron plate about one- 
fourth inch thick and having one edge cut off at the 
required angle to the opposite one ; clamp it to the 
platen so that the side that is cut off will be parallel 
to the desired axial line. Fix a stud having a roller 
at its end to some part of the frame, so that it will 
bear on the edge of the plate ; take out the cross-slide 
screw, and by a weight keep the edge of the plate 
against the roller. Feeding the platen forward will 
cause the cross-slide and platen to move together cross- 
wise. 

Another way of doing it is to have the stud and 
roller on the platen and the plate fastened to the 
framing. 

Tooth and Flute Spacing. There are cases where 
regularity is not desirable, and one of these cases is 
in the spacing of the teeth of milling-cutters and the 
flutes of taps. It will often be found that the chatter- 
ing of a tool is caused by too great regularity in the 
spacing of its cutting-edges ; and packing with soap 



ii2 SHOP KINKS AND 

and paper, and similar make-shifts, are resorted to. 
The best way is not to have the chatter, and this 
may usually be prevented by a slight irregularity in 
the spacing. 

Keeping niIling=Cutters Sharp. Sufficient attention 
is not paid to keeping milling-cutters sharp. It 
seems strange that a man who will take the trouble 
to strop his razor every time that he shaves will work 
right along with dull milling-cutters, job after job, 
without noting whether or not the tools are getting 
into the work by sharpness or by main strength. It 
you want to test this and have a job of work to make 
a great number of pieces all exactly alike, start out 
with a good sharp cutter and note how many pieces 
you can handle in one day of so many hours, under 
average working conditions ; then note how many 
can be made in the second equal number of hours, and 
so on until the job is done or the cutter gets so dull 
that you simply cannot go on with any satisfaction. 
Then you will see how well sharpening will pay as 
regards the labor-cost for the job, and the time in 
which a given number can be put out. 

Of course with the dull tool there is more power 
required, and there is more strain on the belts and 
more wear and tear on the milling-machine ; but that 
is more difficult to estimate. The same remark ap- 
plies to hack saws and to most other tools used about 
a shop. 

Speed of riilling=Cutters. To lessen the trouble of 
calculating through all the various steps usually taken 
in order to get the number of rotations (not revolu- 
tions) of a milling-cutter in order to give a desired 
cutting-speed at the periphery, divide 135 by the 
diameter of the cutter in inches, to get a cutting speed 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 113 

of aoout 35 per minute ; or divide 150 by the diameter 
of the cutter in inches for about 40 feet per minute. 
Thus a cutter one inch in diameter to run about 35 
feet per minute, should make 135 turns per minute; 
a 4-inch cutter to cut about 40 feet per minute, 
should make only 150 ^-4=371 turns per minute, 
and so on. 

Gage for Cutters of Nut-Hilling riachines. In that 
class of nut-facing milling-machines in which the 
nuts are strung on a mandrel and two opposite faces 
milled simultaneously by passing between two rotat- 
ing cutter-heads with axes nearly at right angles to 
the mandrel, and a circle of cutters parallel with the 
axis, it is absolutely necessary that all the cutters on 
each head shall project exactly the same distance, in 
order that each cutter shall get its share of the work, 
and only this ; and that the milled work may be free 
from scores or any other kind of tool-marks. 

In order to effect this, the usual method is to have 
a gage-piece consisting of a metal block having one 
end truly plane, and in this end a square notch large 
enough to admit a cutter and as deep as it is desired, to 
allow each cutter to project (see Figure 101). 

All the cutters being first set too far out, they are 
pushed back by the gage, and then each is held by its 
set-screw ; a work requiring some time and in which 
occasionally one cutter is skipped, leaving it project- 
ing too far and scoring the work. 

In place of this I suggest such a gage as shown in 
Figure 102, consisting of a wedge-shaped plate, having 
the sides of any vertical section parallel, and in hori- 
zontal section having as much taper as the faces of 
the cutter-heads are inclined horizontally to give 
clearance to the cutters. 



H4 



SHOP KINKS AND 



Two vertical projections on each side, as high as it 
is desired to let the cntters project, will touch the flat 
face of the cutter-head ; and the plane but not parallel 
surfaces between will truly gage the projection of all 
the cutters at once. 




Figs, ioi and 102. — Gages for Milling-Cutters. 

This gage may best be made by the machine at 
once ; the wedge shape being given by running it 
through vertically. 

The Grindstone has not yet been driven out of the 
machine-shop ; but the way that it is treated should 
have made any self-respecting machine tool leave, if 
it had means of locomotion. Ordinarily the trough 
is not large enough ; there is no shield so that the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 115 

water will not splash, or if there is one it is fixed so 
that the stone can be nsed from only one side ; there 
are no rests for the tools, or if there are they are fixed 
so that as the stone gets smaller the rests can not be 
moved towards the arbor. The bearings are usually 
too small and have no proper provision for getting oil 
at them and keeping grit from them. About as often 
as not they are held on their arbor by wooden wedges 
which expand with the water used on them, and tend 
to burst the stone. There should be good sized 
flanges and the washers should not turn with the nuts. 
And about as often as not they are used running from 
the workman. Professional ' ' grinders ' ' who grind 
paper-cutter knives and such articles, use the stone 
running towards them. 

I see that you have only one grindstone about 
your shop, for every class of tool, large and small, 
wood- working and iron-working. Now if you will 
only reflect a moment you will find that it will be 
to your advantage to have a harder stone for your 
planer- tools, and for every tool that is to work iron 
or steel, than for those which have to cut only wood 
— and soft wood at that, such as I see that you use 
principally in your pattern-shop. 

I see, too, that your man there is holding his tool 
so that the stone rotates from him. As the stone is 
in tolerable balance, he is wrong. So long as the 
stone is true it should be run towards the tool that is 
being ground— that is, of course, assuming that the 
tool is held on the upper side, and with its cutting- 
edge inclined upwards. 

Lathe vs. Grinder. The late Morton Poole, who 
was the father of the modern high-grade grinding 
machine, was the first to prove with absolute certainty 



n6 SHOP KINKS AND 

and beyond the possibility of contradiction, that 
while no lathe can turn perfectly round, work can be 
ground perfectly round. The reasons for this fact 
are that it is practically impossible to keep the live 
center of a lathe true ; that when it is out of true, 
which is nearly always, the fault is reproduced in 
the work ; that you cannot cut without putting pres- 
sure on the tool ; and that where the stock is not of 
uniform dimensions and quality the work of the tool 
varies with the radius and hardness at the point of 
cutting. In a grinding-machine the work turns on 
dead centers, and the work may be turned end for 
end without affecting its accuracy ; and no matter 
how hard or how soft the stock is, the wheel removes 
to the same distance from the center. When you 
consider also that the bearings of grin ding-machines 
are protected against the emery dust, and that it will 
do as good work on hard as on soft stock, and will 
handle work that the lathe will not touch, you must 
admit that the grinder has high claims on you. 

Emery Wheels vs. Grindstones. Emery and corun- 
dum wheels are gradually and effectually forcing their 
way into shops and crowding grindstones out ; and 
would do so more rapidly if grinding-machines were 
given one-half the attention that they deserve and 
require, and if when there was trouble or apparent 
trouble, it would be properly investigated. For in- 
stance, there is often complaint of " soft sides' ' on 
wheels ; and these are often only in imagination— the 
difficulty being caused by gouging when grinding, 
because the wheel is too soft for the class of tools 
that are being ground on it, or because the workmen 
have been grossly careless. Sometimes, also, a 
wheel will sound and fe^l, when in use, as though it 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 117 

had a low side, but this will be due only to a small 
hole or large pore, such as is very likely to be found 
in a wheel having that amount of porosity which is 
found to give it the best qualities for grinding. 

It will usually be found that one can take from a 
tool, without heating it enough to draw the temper 
or even to make it too hot for one's hand, an amount 
of metal in a given time, which would be impossible 
with a grindstone, without drawing the temper. 

Bursting Emery=Wheels. Quite a commotion in 
one of your shops as I came along, Emery-wheel 
burst and took a piece of the wall with it as it went out 
to look for a shop where they know something abont 
such things and how to use them. Your foreman 
says that that is the second wheel that has burst with 
the same man, and that he seems to be a sort of a 
" hoodoo " in that particular. Well, I don't think 
that there is any luck about it. If that man had gone 
on running emery-wheels the way that he has for the 
last six or seven years and had not had a few of them 
burst, I should have considered it luck, and much 
better luck than he deserved ; but for him to have 
had two wheels burst in your shop, besides the couple 
or so that he had fly all over the face of the earth 
when he was working for Adam— I think that is 
only retribution, or dead certainty, or whatever is 
most opposed to luck and most to be expected from 
certain regular causes. Perhaps you are to blame 
for it a little, perhaps he is to blame entirely ; but I 
would see to it, if I were you, that no more burst in 
your shop. The next time that one lets go it might 
break just the other way and fly through you or 
some of your employees instead of just through the 
wall and into the scrap-heap. 



n8 SHOP KINKS AND 

That man gets about as tapering a mandrel as he 
can find ; he crowds the wheel on it so tightly that 
the cone of the mandrel has a tendency to break the 
wheel apart ; and then he runs the wheel as fast as 
he can get it to turn, and wonders that with the 
wedging action on the inside and the so-called cen- 
trifugal action all through it, particularly at the rim, 
it flies. If he will take a parallel mandrel that is of 
the same size as the hole in the wheel, and will put 
some thick paper between the collars and the sides 
of the wheel, he can hold it centrally without any 
such tapering nonsense, and if it doesn't run true it 
can be made to do so in about five minutes, by a 
diamond-point. 

If the makers of that wheel, and of other emery- 
wheels, had thought it best to use tapering mandrels 
with them, the wheels would have had tapering holes 
through them ; they would have been much more easy 
to make. But the makers thought that by putting a 
cylindrical hole in each wheel, the user would " see 
the point n and use a cylindrical mandrel. 

Emery=Wheel Holder for Car Wheels. It is some- 
times desirable to have a holder for an emery or co- 

= ,_— j ffi i 1 TAPER ROUND PIN 



Fig. 103. — Emery-Wheel Holder for Car Wheels. (Brigley). 

rundum- wheel for use on an ordinary lathe. Mr. John 
J. Brigley, of Watertown, N. Y., showed some time 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



119 



ago in the American Machinist a simple device which 
he employed for grinding car wheels, the illustra- 
tion of which is self-explanatory. 

Making an Emery=Wheel. Sometimes it will be 
found difficult to make emery stick to a wooden 
wheel. Mr. H. A. Seavey, of N. Conway, N. H., 
has found out that if instead of trying to make the 
emery stick to the wood we will first glue on felt 
or heavy woolen cloth and then smear it with hot 
glue, and roll it in emery heated quite hot, there will 
be no difficulty about the sticking. Three coats 
should be given. It is the felt ring or tire that does 
the trick. 

Dust Flues. When one is rigging up a temporary 
emery-wheel, as on a lathe, and finds it necessary to 
carry off the dust, about as good a way as any is to 
have an ordinary tin funnel to which is attached a 
rubber hose leading into a piece of tin rain-spouting 
in which a small steam-jet plays axially. This will 
make enough draft to carry away the dust without 
trouble. 




Fig. 104. — Facing-Tool for Worms. (Harringtons ) 

Grinding Tools Without Changing Their Shape is an 

advantage when it can be done. In the Harrington 



SHOP KINKS AND 



works they have a special facing- tool for work on 
worms, etc., which maybe kept always of the same 
contour and rake by merely grinding it on the face as 
shown at a, Figure 104. 

Grinding Standard Gages is a work of aggravation 





A 




B 




p — 


C 


— 1 


C 








t 














Fig. 105. — Grinding Mandrel for Collar-Gages. 
and uncertainty as ordinarily carried out, especially 






^ 


A 1 







Fig. to6. — Grinding Mandrel for Plug Gages. 
with the collar, which is apt to have the bore a trifle 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 121 

flaring because the grinding material meets the edge 
of the hole first. In the Pratt & Whitney shops they 
use a mandrel shown in Figure 105 ; the length A being 
taper and having a flute C. The lead is cast on and 
turned on the mandrel. Driving the taper mandrel 
through increases the diameter of the lap while keep- 
ing it cylindrical. 

For the plug gages they use the lap shown in 
Figure 106 ; a cast-iron cylindrical body A being split 
partially through at B and entirely through at C, 
the screw D closing it to take up wear. The split B 
makes it close more readily and admits the grinding 
material. 

For Grinding Iron or Steel Balls a good plan is to 
have a cup emery-wheel with the inside diameter 
somewhat smaller than that which is required of the 
ball ; and be sure to strengthen the wheel either by 
strong Manilla paper bands wider than the hight of 
the cup, wound around and around with glue between 
the folds, or by a cast-iron or other cup in which it 
may be contained, so that then there will be no 
danger of accidents from bursting of the wheel at high 
speeds. 

Regrinding Rolls. The great and increasing use of 
both smooth and corrugated chilled cast-iron rolls in 
flour milling often brings up the question as to 
whether these rolls, when worn out of truth, can be 
reground without re- turning the journals. There is 
no one answer that will fit every case. If the journals 
remain true the rolls can be reground very readily 
without extra care, and reground either on centers or 
(what is better yet) on their own journals. If the 
journals are out of true, they should be ground — not 
turned — at the same time as the rolls. The rolls 



122 SHOP KINKS AND 

would run truly if ground while running on their own 
journals, whether these journals were true or not, 
because any fault in the journals would be corrected 
in the grinding. But the chance of getting two rolls 
thus ground, so set in the machine that both sets of 
corrections would come together promptly, would be 
too slim for any one to take ; hence the journals 
should be ground, if at all "out." An additional 
reason for regrinding the journals is the increased life 
of the bearings in which they run, and the dimin- 
ished amount of power required to run them. 

Corrugated rolls may be thrown out of truth, in re- 
corrugating, even after being ground to absolute truth ; 
this is usually the result of comparatively soft places 
in the surface causing the tool to sink in too deeply 
or to pluck out metal, leaving a low spot at the soft 
place. 

It would be well if makers of roller mills would so 
belt them that their relative velocities would be prime 
to each other ; that is, the same two places should not 
come together every few rotations, but only at very 
long intervals. This is often done with gears, so that 
the same two teeth do not strike each other more than 
in some hundreds of rotations. The result is greatly 
increased wear ; no one tooth goes much more quickly 
than the rest, as every tooth comes in contact with 
every other one. 

How to Make Truly Round Balls. Anyone who 
has ever endeavored to turn balls perfectly round in a 
lathe may know — and if he doesn't he should know — 
that there is no lathe built which will turn objects 
perfectly spherical. In many cases after the lathe has 
done its work (and this is true of heavy lathes with 
as perfect fit and adjustment as money can buy) the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 123 

bolts will be found enough. ( ' out ' ' for the error to be 
perceptible with the finger and thumb. The moral 
of this is that grinding must be resorted to, to do 
away with the inequalities of the lathe- work. For 
such work, the cup emery-wheel (and under emery- 
wheels I include corundum- wheels as well) will be 
found convenient and effective. 

In Finishing Leaf=Springs by Grinding care should 
be taken that the grinding-marks run lengthwise 
instead of crosswise ; as when a spring is hardened 
and tempered it takes very little inducement in the 
shape of a crosswise scratch or fine groove, such as a 
grain of emery leaves, to cause the spring to break off 
short right at the crack. 

The Saw as a Machine Tool. There are too few 
large shops in which the metal-sawing machine is 
used. There are many classes of work, in the smith- 
shop, particularly, in which there is a distinct saving 
in the use of the saw over the ordinary process of 
nicking and breaking, or of cutting off in the lathe — 
as, for instance, where it is required to cut a number of 
pieces to length ready for centering. Where the stock 
is flat or square, there is even more saving than with 
round material ; and there are cases where there is a 
piece that needs its corner or end trimmed off or a 
gap cut out, as in a crank-shaft, in which the sawing- 
machine will save time and trouble and do better 
work than can be got by any other means. 

Machine Too!. Many a man cuts a piece of work- 
especially brass- work — into small chips by a regular 
cutter or lathe- tool, when he could cut it by a circular 
saw in a milling-machine, or even by a good hack- 
saw, in less time and with less consumption of power. 



124 SHOP KINKS AND 

The saw can even be used for heavy gaining. For 
brass- work it is well to have disks which are thicker 
on the rirn than at the center, in order to give the 
necessary clearance with less weakness than would be 
given by spreading or by springing the teeth of a disk 
of equal thickness throughout. Six inches is the 
largest saw that you will find convenient for ordinary 
brass-work ; and four inches will come in more often 
as the best size to use for small work. 

Cutting Rails to Length. Some of those rails are 
longer than the others ; and the reason of it is that 
while the gages were set all right, some of them were 
hotter then the others ; and the rails which were the 
hottest when cut, are the shortest when cold, having 
contracted more than the others after cutting. In 
some of the German mills they never have any such 
trouble ; they look at the rail through a dark glass, 
from which, when they have cooled to a certain tem- 
perature, they cannot be seen at all. A dark blue or 
an orange-yellow glass will make a red-hot rail invis- 
ible. It may be considered a fact that any two 
rails looked at through the same pair of glasses will 
disappear at the same temperature ; if every rail is 
allowed to cool until it is just invisible through a 
certain pair of glasses, all will be of the same temper- 
ature, and their lengths will be the same. 

This is one of the lessons that we may learn from 
our cousins across the water. 

For Cutting Small=Diameter Steel a good special 
hack-saw is about as good as any. Hand hack-saws 
are of course slow, but they do the work ; but there 
are power hack-saws which will put into the shade 
any other device for the purpose. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



125 



Cutting off Small Pieces. I don't know why it is 
that people who have cntting-off machines for bar 
iron of large size should not, when they have a 
number of small pieces to cut off, place a number of 




Fig. 107. — Cutting off Small Pieces. 

them iiv a clamp at once and cut them all at one 
operation, as shown in Figure 107, which represents 
this being done on one of the Newton machines. 

Hack=saw Lubricant. I have always been an advo- 
cate of black-lead as a useful thing to have around ; 
and one use which is not often found for it is in the 
lubrication of hack-saws. Two parts of tallow and 
one of graphite will make a saw cut faster and more 
sweetly. 

Punch=Bushings. A good wrinkle for users of 
small punches who ruin many by breakage or exces- 
sive wear, is the punch-bushing, used in connection 
with a stock and coupling. The punches themselves 
are made of Stubs rod, with one end upset with a 
hammer so as to form a head ; this is held in the bush 
and holder just as a twist-drill is held. 



126 SHOP KINKS AND 

Spiral Punches. The average punch throws too 
much strain on the press by reason of its cutting 
all the way around at once. This has been avoided 
by the Kennedy punch, which, however, is rather ex- 
pensive to make and troublesome to keep in order. 
Among about a hundred other ''notions," which I 
have got from time to time from Prof. J. B. Sweet, is 




Fig. 108.— Spiral Punch. 

an idea for a punch which should be very useful 
where there is large work to get out. As shown in 
Figure 108, the end is divided into semi-circular 
halves, each of which is ground sloping so as to give a 
shearing cut, there being always two parts in action 
at once, and these being always diametrically oppo- 
site to each other. The action is a rotary shearing 
one. 

Centering Punch. I do not remember where I got 
the idea of the centering punch shown in Figure 109 ; 
but I think it was in the Delamater Works, from 
which I always brought away more ideas than I left. 
F is a chunky portion of cheap metal — cast iron, 
wrought iron, or steel casting, according to the char- 
acter of work to be done — and it has a screw collar E 
by which to clamp to it centrally and firmly the punch 
proper, D, which has its upper end enlarged and 
beveled as shown in the illustration. This portion 
is of the best tool-steel and its working edge A is best 
slightly cupped. Down through its middle there is a 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



127 



hole about half its diameter, and three- fourths its 
length ; and the rest of its length it is bored smaller 
to receive accurately the shank of a centering-pin A 
with an enlarged head B that fits the larger bore. 
This being slipped into D from above, there is next 
inserted in the large bore a spiral spring 0; then the 




Fig. 109.— Centering Punch. 

collar E is slipped over the punch proper, and this is 
clamped thereby to the head F. The spring throws 
A out far enough to enable it to find the cross-mark 
or prick-mark ; then as the punch is brought down A 
recedes and the working edge of D cuts out the piece. 
Why Taps Break. The reason those taps break in 
the nicks is that you have made the grooves with 



128 



SHOP KINKS AND 



straight sides and bottoms. Type-founders know 
better than that. The nicks that they put in are 
practically semi-circular in side outline, and their 
nicks are not intended to do any work. Yours are ; 
yet you have made them of a shape which encourages 
breakage in the sharp corners. 

Collapsing Taps have the advantage that they may 
be withdrawn without reversing the work, and 
that they are not (particularly if they have clearance) 



aO 







D (ZI 



= B 




Figs, iio and hi. — Collapsing Taps. 

worn in that operation. P A igures no and in show 
one used in vertical machines for steam fittings. A y 
which is driven by the machine spindle, drives B 
through the pin H. In B are three chasers, C fitting 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT 



129 



the dovetail and taper grooves D, and which have 
lugs fitting an annular groove E } worked in A, so 
that if the pin H rises the chaser will not rise with it 
but will close together ; if the core B descends they 
will open. When the tap is cutting it is driven as 
shown by the arrow and the pin H is driven by the 
ends of the grooves ; but throwing H in the direction 
of working raises 5 in i, closes the chasers away 
from the thread just cut, and permits easy with- 
drawing. 

Figure 112 is a collapsing tap used by the Hancock 
Inspirator Co. It has an outer shell A carrying three 



3S- 



Fig. 112. — Collapsing Tap. (Hancock Inspirator Co). 

chasers i?, pivoted to A at C, having a small lug at 
E at one end and being coned at the inner end D. 
The inner shell F is reduced along part of its length 
to receive the lug E of the chasers and let them open 
out full at their cutting end. At the other end of F 
is a washer H against which abuts the spiral spring 
shown, its other end pressing against a shoulder in 
A. The washer H {§ beveled on its end face to cor- 
respond with the bevel on a notch in the lever I. 
Within the inner tube F is the stem J, into the end 
of which is fixed the piece K, on which is fixed the 
cone L. The pieces K and L are kept from turning 
by a spline in iT, into which the pin M projects. 




i 3 o SHOP KINKS AND 

In the portion in which the parts are here shown, F 
is pushed forward so that its coned end G has opened 
the chaser to fullest extent; the opening being 
governed by contact of the lug E with the reduced 
diameter of F. In operating in the work, when the 
foot N of K meets with the resistance of the end of 
the hole being tapped, /and L will be pushed to the 
right until the cone on L raises the end of the lever 
i, and the notch on / clears H, when the spring will 
force F to the right, and the shoulder on F at X, will 
lift the end i? of *the chasers, collapsing the cutting 
end within A, on the pivot C as a center of motion. 

Frictionless Taps sound like an impossibility, but I 
have seen some that are verily well entitled to be so 
called. The thread is first cut and the taper turned 
in the usual way, then in order better to see what is 
going on, the blank is heated to change its color. 
Before being fluted or grooved the blank is put into 
the lathe with the foot-stock set back the reverse of 
the way in which the taper was turned ; and then 
with a tool rather more acute than that used for cut- 
ting the thread, the bottom of the thread is turned 
away until there is formed a new angle on all the 
sides of all the threads up to about J the tap diameter, 
which is left in its original condition to clear out and 
leave a finished hole. After fluting and filing away 
the outer surface between the flutes, such a tap will 
have clearance all along. 

In Fluting or Grooving Taps always back off the 
threads. There is no way of presenting the cutter 
which will result in giving clearance, such as can be 
and should be given by backing off. 

Straightening Taps. Making an ugly face over 
that tap that has got crooked in hardening? Instead 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 131 

of doing that, scour it clean so that you can see what 
color it has when heated, bring it nearly if not quite 
up to the temperature at which its temper was drawn, 
and then you can straighten it without much trouble. 

Pipe=Dies made of a malleable-iron frame in which 
the cutters are held by screws from the back and ad- 
justed by thicknesses of paper will be found conven- 
ient for average repair work. The frames bearing 
the dies can be used in any die-stock of the proper 
size. 

Cutting Pipe=Threads in a Lathe. When you have 
pipe- threads to cut in any quantity, and have no reg- 
ular pipe- threading machine, just take off the tail- 
stock of a lathe, put your dies in the chuck, rig up 
a steady-rest on the carriage, that will grip the pipe 
enough to keep it from turning, and sail in ; using 
slow speed and plenty of oil. 

Three vs. Four Dies for Sere w=Th reading. There 
was a time when machinists were somewhat divided 
in opinion about the relative merits of dies in sets of 
three and those in sets of four, for pipe- threading. 
But it seems to me that the question is now about 
settled in the minds of most, that three dies should do 
better work, and actually do better work than four, un- 
der the same conditions — unless the stock is very thin 
and very little pressure is put on. On the same prin- 
ciple that it is best to have a large number of flutes in 
taps and reamers, it is best to have a large number in a 
screw- threading implement. We will suppose that 
one die gets dull or broken in a set of four ; that 
throws double work on the one opposite it and there 
is double the chance of dulling, breaking or bad 
work ; and the same applies all around to meet any 
case of defective work from one cutter. 



132 



SHOP KINKS AND 



Monkey = Wrenches and Pipe=Ton^s. There seerns 
to be considerable controversy abont the inventor of 
the monkey-wrench. Some say that bis name was 
Charles, and others that it was Thomas ; all agree 
that he was a benefactor to the race of mechanics — 
bnt the English call the thing itself an u adjustable 
spanner " and cheat him (Charles or Thomas, it is all 
one at this date) out of the credit which is due him. 

But what I want to know is, who invented pipe- 
tongs ? I want to find out where he is boarding, and 
then I want to go and stamp on him, and give him 
my opinion of him. Why is it that their jaws are all 
out of true, even when they are new ; that their 
handles spring ; that they only fit about one size of pipe 
with any degree of decency, and are not satisfactory 
even then ? Why did not the pipe-tong man finish 
the invention and give us tongs that would grip, or 
else let them alone ? 

For my part, there is only one thing which I hate 
worse than a pair of three-fourths inch pipe- tongs, 
and that is a pair of inch-and- three-quarter. 

In Pipe=Fitting the monkey-wrench may be used 
as a substitute for the ordinary and usually good- for 




Fig. 113.— The Monkey-Wrench as a Pipe-Wrench. 

nothing pipe-tongs, in a very simple manner. Bring 
the jaws of the wrench to the size of the pipe, then 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



133 



put a short piece of an old round file (see A, Figure 
113) between the piece to be unscrewed, shown at B, 
and the lower jaw 0, of the wrench. The piece of 
file will roll between the pipe or nipple and the jaw, 
and will so greatly increase the grip as to enable good 
pipe-fitting to be done. 

Lead = Pipe Joints. A rather neat way of making 
lead- pipe joints came to my eye the other day. There 
was a female die made of conical shape, and this was 
forced over the end of each pipe and hammered so as 
to make a cone on each of the two ends that would 
be joined together. Next they were inserted one 
after the other in a double-taper collar which was 





riHfksr— -J 


== ^l J 


1^^ 


^r~" - A 




Fig. 114. — Making Lead-Pipe Joints. 

threaded inside, and were then expanded by a man- 
drel until they took the form of the threads and were 
left with cylindrical bore of the original size of the 
pipe. There is no question about the perfection of 
the fit between metal and metal in such a job as that. 
The only objection to this method is that only short 
lengths can be added at a time; this being governed 
by the length of the mandrel. 

Globe- Valves in Pipe=Lines. Sufficient pains are 
not taken in putting up pipe-lines to have the globe- 
valves with their stems horizontal, to prevent water 
pockets ; and angle- valves are not so much used as 
they should be. 



i 3 4 SHOP KINKS AND 

Bending Copper Pipes as ordinarily effected, by 
plugging up one end, filling that with melted rosin, 
and then after bending melting out the rosin again, 
is troublesome and expensive. The substitution of 
sand for rosin is sometimes practiced as an improve- 
ment on the rosin, as regards the time that it takes. 
There is a much better way, which leaves the pipes 
much more truly circular in cross-section at the bends. 
It consists of taking a spiral of wire, preferably of 
square section, of a diameter very slightly greater 
than the bore of the pipe to be bent. One end being 
supplied with a squared piece to permit of the appli- 
cation of an ordinary carpenter's brace, the spring is 
inserted in the pipe completely, by turning the brace 
in the direction of the spiral so as to slightly diminish 
the diameter of the spiral; then the turning being 
discontinued, the spiral springs to its full diameter. 
The pipe may then be bent as though it was a lead 
rod ; and then turning the brace in the reverse way 
the spiral may be withdrawn from the tube. Curves 
of any degree of complication may thus be made with- 
out any flattening at the bends ; the only limit of 
sharpness of curvature being that imposed by the 
quality of the metal, which, of course, will "flow" 
only to the extent permitted by its quality. Curves 
in all three planes may be made. 

Electric Drills in Boiler Work. The old-fashioned 
way of ratcheting holes in fire-box sheets is slow, and 
in these days of high-priced labor, costly. A good 
workman can do with the electric drill as much 
work in eight hours as by hand in ten, and make 
better holes. Nowadays, he wheels up alongside of 
the boiler a little truck, bearing an electric motor, 
which drives a nest of bevel gears, from which projects 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



135 



a shaft having practically universal motion. If it is 
a locomotive boiler he engages two hooks which are 
attached to the drilling- truck or motor- truck, to the 
engine-frames, fits his drill in the socket, turns on 
the current, and is ready for work. Within consider- 
able range the motor-truck permits of drilling several 
holes without moving it parallel to the boiler ; but it 
is literally but the work of a moment to unclamp, 
move it along three or four feet, and begin again. In 
the Baldwin Works, where most of the work is done 
electrically and preparations are made to do more, 
one man drills as many holes in eight hours with the 
electrical drill as in ten by hand, and makes better 
holes. 

Reaming Holes in Plate Work, such as boilers, 
bridges, etc., may be very much better done by a 
screw reamer such as is shown in Figure 115 than by 
the ordinary half-round device. It is quite well 
adapted to use with the flexible shaft. 






Fig. 



115.— Screw Reamer for Plate-Work. 



Another reamer for boiler work is shown in Figure 



11b. 



being a variation on the one just described. It 




Fig. 116.— Screw Reamer for Boiler Works. 

has straight flutes, and spiral grooves to break up 
the chips and help the feed. 



136 SHOP KINKS AND 

Compressed Air for Tapping and Reaming in Boiler= 
Shops. About as rapid work as one wants to see is 
that done in the way of reaming and tapping stay- 
bolt holes in fire-boxes in the Baldwin Works. 
There is a main running full length of the boiler- 
shop, on each side, delivering air at 80 pounds press- 
ure. This has numerous points of attachment for 
hose, with small motors bearing reamers and taps on 
their outer ends. The workman controls the action 
of the motor with a cock right at his hand, and reams 
and taps steel sheets as though he were boring holes 
in wood. One man can ream 150 holes -J inch in 
diameter in steel sheets f inch in thickness, per hour, 
and can tap 40 of the same diameter in the same 
time in the same sheet. By hand, he would ream 
only 50 and tap only 20. 

Flanging Boiler=Heads, and similar work, requires 
a very skilled workman, and more judgment than 
draftsmen usually give in making the drawings there- 
fore. While the excellence of flange-iron is proverb- 
ial, too much should not be expected of it, and it is 
not reasonable to suppose that with a three-inch 
radius a fire-box or boiler-head will have the metal as 
little crippled as with a five or a six. Of course when 
even the best of metal is bent over a short radius, the 
material on the inside of the curve is wrinkled (it 
must go somewhere) and that on the outside is 
stretched and perhaps strained. 

A Good Riveted Joint. In these days of high steam- 
pressures it is necessary to have riveted joints that 
shall not merely hold the plates together but prevent 
leakage ; and for bridge- structure it is also necessary 
that the hole be well filled so as to prevent the infil- 
tration of water and consequent rusting ; also to do 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



137 



away with lost motion. The late Major B. B. Meat- 
yard (whom to know well was a liberal education) 
devised shortly before his death the form shown in 
section in Figure 117. There are three plates, the 
middle one of which has a hole with parallel sides, as 
by drilling, and the others having conical outlines, as 
is usually the case (although not in such a marked 




Fig. 117. — Riveted Joint, (Meatyard). 



degree as here shown) where punching is resorted to. 
The rivet is formed with its ' ' first head ' ' conical and 
slightly convex, and its shank cylindrical ; once in 
place it is expanded by a pin-shaped tool (preferably 
hydraulically) so that it fills the holes completely, and 
yet gives a flush joint suitable for ship work. 

BoiIer=Calking Tools. I show here three styles of 
boiler- calking tools, marked in the illustration num- 
bers 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The first one has 
a square end ; the second round ; the third round also, 
but with a step on each side, that is, there is a fillet 
on its end. The first scores and weakens the plate ; 
the second compresses the metal without scoring it, 
and the third does the same thing only rather better. 



138 SHOP KINKS AND 

The Baldwin Locomotive Works have for many years 



Fig. irS. — Boiler-Calking Tools. 

used the second style with the best results as regards 
the tightness and strength of seams. 

Center=Cutting Shears. Shears for cutting off 
stock operate by leverage ; but they are usually made 




Fig. 119. — Center-Cutting Shears. 

so that the leverage is decreased by reason of the im- 
possibility of getting the stock near to the center — 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 139 

where of course trie pivot is found. In order to get 
a chance to cut nearer the center, and thus increase 
the leverage to the maximum possible (which would 
be infinite in the case of stock of no diameter) , the 
movable jaw may be given a circular sliding motion 
about an imaginary center, as shown in Figure 119, 
where the stock may be brought absolutely to the 
center, if desired. 

True Surface=P!ates. Every one who has ever 
made or used a surface-plate of the usual kind knows 
that more of the ' ' innate cussedness of inanimate 
matter " resides in, on or around it than in, on or 
around any other equal size and weight of material. 
It is the embodiment of fickle obstinacy, or obstinate 
fickleness. It is " all things to all men, ' ' and various 
things to one man, according to the temperature, and 
(some think) according to the time of day and the 
phase of the moon. It must be coddled like a new- 
born babe, and humored like a great grandsire of four- 
score and ever-so-many years. The opening of a 
door, the removal to a bench on which the sun has 
been shining — any one of a dozen things will make 
this supposed ( ' standard ' ' prevaricate like the father 
of lies ; and the worst of it is that the falsehood is in- 
consistent and ever changing. 

Of what use, then, making these things three at a 
time so as to insure absolute truth, if each one is to 
be true only when there are two others with which 
to compare it? Of what avail is the perfection of 
squareness and flatness, the utmost refinement of 
finish, if the thing can't be used save under a felt 
wrapper and in a chamber with fixed and invariable 
temperature ? 

There is such a thing as a tool or an appliance 



140 SHOP KINKS AND 

being too nearly perfect — being like some men whom 
we run across sometimes, entirely too good for this 
world, and yet not quite good enough for the next. 

But, granting all this, say you, most intelligent 
and eminently practical reader — granting that the 
surface-plate, as we have it, and as Pitt, Planer & Co., 
have it, and as all the members of the noble army of 
martyrs to mechanical imperfections have it, is as 
it is, — most worthy fellow-sufferers, what, in the 
language of the late unlamented Boss Tweed, are 
you going to do about it? 

As for myself, only to show you what some one else 
has done about it. If, after hearing of your former 
fellow-sufferers' revolt from the persecution of a 
whimsical, inanimate tyrant, you feel like throwing 
your ancient and dishonorable surface-plate at the 
traditional cat and making yourself one which can be 
guaranteed to be like the laws of the Medes and 
Persians, unchangeable, I shall deem myself to have 
been of use in the world. 

The credit is due to Bement, Miles & Co., of the 
Industrial Works, Philadelphia. 

The trouble with the old style of surface-plate, no 
matter how carefully ribbed and stiffened on the back, 
to prevent its being sprung in lifting or in case it was 
not set squarely on a support, was that its two faces 
were not alike. One was a flat surface, planed, filed 
and scraped true ; the other a ribbed and cross-ribbed 
field. The conditions of tension in these two faces 
were not and could not be the same. Heat could not 
act on both sides alike, even if they were exposed to 
the same conditions, which was not at all likely — in 
fact was hardly possible. The result was as stated, 
that the plate required special care to preserve it at a 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 141 

uniform temperature in the tool-room, and when 
taken out for use assumed all sorts of shapes, being 
alternately convex, flat and concave, according to the 
time that it had been out of its case ; and according, 
also, to other conditions and circumstances. 

Now for the remedy. This, of course, must involve 
a knowledge of the cause. The cause of trouble being 
principally non-similarity of the two sides, the remedy 
was to make both sides exactly alike as regards ten- 
sion and general condition. Accordingly there was 
cast a hollow box with all cross-sections rectangular, 
and having a core also rectangular in every cross- 
section, and parallel with the external faces of the 
box; the opposite sides, edges and ends, having equal 
thickness. This being held in the planer by supports 
reaching into the core-space, was planed all over, 
faces, edges and ends, equal cuts being taken off op- 
posite faces so as to keep the opposite strains equal. 
One side, one edge and one end were then filed and 
scraped dead flat, and not only dead flat and true, but 
at right angles to each other, so that the corner where 
these three true faces met formed a triedral angle (that 
is, the angle at the corner of a triangular pyramid) of 
ninety degrees in every reckoning. The appliance as 
thus finished constituted a surface-plate with maxi- 
mum stiffness, that would be affected to a minimum 
amount by such changes of temperature as are impos- 
sible to avoid, and which plate could also be used for 
truing up steel squares, draftsmen's T-squares, and 
other tools requiring absolute straightness and perpen- 
dicularity. 

Care of Surface= Plates. Attention should be called 
to the habit that some careless workmen have of put- 
ting surface-plates while in use, where they will get 



142 SHOP KINKS AND 

warmed up on one side, or on one not more than the 
other, so that they will be sprung by the heat of the 
sun or of the steam pipes. The more accurate a 
surface- plate is, the more care should be taken to keep 
it at uniform temperature all over, and as far as possi- 
ble to have that temperature the same as that of the 
material which is compared with it. If a surface- 
plate which has been lying in the sun and attained a 
temperature of ninety degrees, is laid on a printing- 
press bed, which by reason of being in a dark part of 
the shop in a draft has a temperature of only 
seventy degrees or perhaps sixty degrees, the slab will 
cool the working- face of the surface-plate and spring 
it out of true plane, despite its thickness or its ribs ; 
in fact sometimes the thicker it is the more readily it 
may be sprung. 

If the surface-plate has an even temperature of 
ninety degrees all over, it will remain true unless laid 
on something hotter or colder ; if it has laid in the 
sun face up, its face will get convex ; if it has laid 
back up, it will get concave on the face. As most 
surface-plates are longer than they are wide and tend 
to spring into a cylindrical rather than a spherical 
surface, the effect of curling by reason of unequal 
heating may be discovered and to some extent neutral- 
ized in work by using them in two directions ; once 
with their length parallel with that of the piece being 
tested, and again with their length at right angles 
thereto. 

Fine Adjustment for Surface=Gage. If you want a 
surface-gage that will be simple, stiff, and convenient, 
and yet have fine adjustment, there was one shown 
some time ago in the American Machinist which 
should serve your purpose. The whole trick lies in 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



143 



the scriber and in the washers that hold it. The 
washers are cut out square from sheet steel and 
soldered together, the hole for the scriber drilled and 
finished with a rose reamer of the same size as the 
scriber itself. Then the center-hole is made in the 
washers and they are turned up round, polished 
and then unsoldered. When the solder is cleaned 
off, the washers will bring up solid on their inside 




Fig. i 20. — Adjustable Surface-Gage. 

faces at the same time that they clamp the scriber. 
While they clamp tight enough to prevent the scriber 
from moving endwise through, or the washers being 
turned on the stud J., the scriber can be twisted in its 
bearing by grasping its hooked end, which gives some 
leverage. If the scriber is given a very slight bend 
about one-quarter of the way from the point, turning 
the hook will cause the point to describe a circle. 

To Hake a Good Bar Caliper, provide a bar of steel 
one-half inch in diameter and two feet long, and a 
brass tube that will just slide over it, of the same 
length. One-half inch from one end of the bar, drill 
a one-quarter inch hole at right angles to its length ; 
and in its end drill in to meet this cross-hole, a hole 
of suitable size to tap off a three-sixteenths inch milled- 
head set-screw. On one end of the tube insert a 



144 SHOP KINKS AND 

wrought-iron collar about three-sixteenth inches thick 
and three-quarters inch wide, and tap this in its 
center, for another three-sixteenths inch milled-head 
set-screw. In the other end of the tube sweat a plug 
about three-quarter-inch long ; in this, parallel with 
the hole in the collar, drill a one-quarter inch hole, 
and along the axis of the plug drill a tap for another 
three-sixteenths inch milled-head set- screw. Provide 
three milled-head set-screws with cupped ends, one 
one-quarter inch round hard steel rod eight inches 
long with a sharp point on one end, and another one- 
quarter inch hard steel rod eighteen inches long, with 
one end turned up at right angles for two inches, and 
both ends ground to a fine point, and the apparatus 
is ready to put together and use. 

This will serve admirably as a bar caliper or as a 
tram. Additional stiffness may be given if desired — 
although there is very little work, where it will be 
necessary — by having a second three-quarter inch 
wide wrought-iron collar sweated on the tube about 
six inches from the first one and similarly tapped and 
supplied with a set-screw. 

Beam Calipers. It sometimes happens that a pair 
of beam calipers would come in handy. The arrange- 
ment here shown serves both for inside and for out- 
side work. As shown in Figure 121 it has for a beam 
two one-half-inch round steel rods (these are best oi 
different lengths so that one may be used up to a 
certain diameter, the other up to a certain large diam- 
eter, and both together, fastened by the coupling 
shown in the sketch, for a diameter greater than the 
largest that one alone can span) . There are made three 
one-inch steel sleeves, one two inches long, the others 
each one inch long. The short ones are fitted with 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



145 



one set-screw each, and the long one with two, in line. 
These screws should have milled- heads, and cupped 
ends. The legs are of approximately T outline, and 
are both filed out at the same time from flat steel one- 
eighth inch thick. They are mortised into the short 
sleeves, by making on the end of each two round 
tenons one-eighth inch in diameter with a tight fit 
into one-eighth inch holes, the same distance apart 




Fig. 121. — Beam Calipers. 



in the sleeves. The beams may be graduated in 
inches and fractions ; and if the legs are properly 
centered with regard to the sleeves, and there is just 
an inch between the inside and the outside points of 
each leg, the readings corresponding to the inside or 
outside ends of the sleeves will correspond to the 
distances apart of the inside and outside of the legs, 
respectively. 

Bettering Calipers. The question — stiff joints vs. 
spring calipers comes up as often as any in shop talk. 
An improvement on stiff-joint calipers is one to which 
my attention has been called by Mr. J. W. Payler, 



146 SHOP KINKS AND 

who took a pair of 15-inch stiff-joint calipers, the 
point of one leg of which he enlarged and then tapped 
for a small screw to meet the other point, so that 
when opened to measure any object they can be set 
by the joint to one-eighth or one-quarter inch larger 
and adjusted by the screw to touch (just where the 
touch can be most accurately felt) at the very point 
of contact with the object. The same thing is used 
in the famous Bollinckx shops in Brussels : — which, 
by the way, are largely equipped with American ma- 
chine-tools. 

Compressing Caliper=Joint. Most calipers have a 
tendency to spring open when used outside, or to 
close when used inside. A device which they have 
in the Standard Tool Co's. shops is intended to do 
away with this trouble. It has legs of unusual width ; 
this being at the rivet end about one- tenth the length, 
and running on a true taper. This width admits of 
a large rivet ; and in place of the usual rivet and 
washer (which would soon wear and become loose) , 
they use a hollow rivet or a tube. One leg in each 
pair has a hole drilled at a point about one- quarter 
the whole length from the rivet end ; then the leg is 
sawed from the rivet-hole to the one drilled. The 
tube is cut through one side and spring- tempered ; 
the holes in the legs being just enough smaller to 
close the tube and to open the slot in the sawed leg. 
This, as a matter of fact, makes a double spring; the 
rivet opening, and the hole in the leg closing, as the 
joint wears in use, so compensating for the usual 
wear in use. The joint can be made as fine or as 
loose as desired. The tube being hardened should 
insure the joint lasting for years without being bat- 
tered with a hammer as is customary with firm-joint 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 147 

calipers. The width of the stock in the legs is such 
that the tool makes or approaches a snap gage. 

A Thousandth of an Inch is a good deal in a fit, as 
you may test for yourself by taking a Pratt & Whit- 
ney one-half inch plug-and-collar gage, sticking the 
plug one-eighth inch into the collar and moving the 
outer end back and forth as though to try the fit. 
The outer end will move about three-sixteenths of an 
inch. Many men work much closer than this with- 
out thinking that they come within gunshot of it. 

The rietric System has been retarded in its adop- 
tion by English-speaking people, very largely by the 
excess of zeal of its advocates, who have been so 
proud of the elegant regularity of the graduations in 
every table that they publish every one of the dimen- 
sions, although many of them are never used from 
one year's end to the other, any more than the 
"mill" and u eagle " are used in our every-day buy- 
ing and selling. Any one who has ever used the 
metric system and then had to come back to our 
abominable divisions and sub-divisions, and to units 
of weight that have no relation to those of measure, 
will deprecate any attempt to retard the march of 
progress by holding on to our antiquated units. We 
laugh at the Russians and the Peruvians and the 
Saxons for holding on to the Reaumur thermometer ; 
but what we are doing is ten times worse. 

rieasuring Sere w=Th reads. Where there are many 
screw-threads to be measured it will be found well to 
have a gage that will measure both the thread-angles 
and their pitch. As shown in the illustration, 
Figure 122, there is a sheet-metal gage 6r, having at 
a and b teeth to fit tke threads. If the edge of the 



148 



SHOP KINKS AND 



gage meets the tops of the threads, then their depth 
is right. Where it is desired to test only the pitch, 
it may be made as shown at 6r, where its edge clears 




Fig. 122.— Screw-Head Gages. 



be tried at several 
Hardened threads 



the thread- tops, so that it may 
points along the thread-length, 
need this sort of a test. 

Gages for Sere w-Th reads may be made of saw- 
blades, and have one side given a pitch to snit that 
of the screw. The edges should be hardened. 

Broaching. Before starting to make mills for a job 
it may sometimes be worth your while to see if the 
work can't be done by broaching. It is not usually 
considered as the best kind of machine work, yet 
there is a great deal of it done in gun-making; and 
while the finish is not so good as by milling, there are 
many jobs which do not call for a mill finish and 
which, even if they did, could be finished well by 
other means. Those who do good work of this kind 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



149 



find that it is better to use parallel than diagonal lines 
of teeth ; and say that the work is more readily done 
on hard than on soft stock. 

For Enlarging Square Holes in Cast Iron, the old- 
fashioned broach is about as good as anything. The 
stock should be planed square and to size in a shaper, 
then planed tapering at both ends ; then the shaper- 
vise swiveled so that the teeth will be planed diag- 
onally in order to give a shearing cut. For this work 
a grooving tool one-eight inch wide answers, its cut- 



canmnna 

Fig. 123. — Broach for Cast Iron. 

ting edge being ground at a slight angle so as to back 
off the broach- teeth. Thus the broach may be filed 
and hardened. Of course, it does not keep its size 
forever, but where there are not too many holes to be 
made it will save time and files. (Figure 123.) 

Hilling Out Keys. About as cheap a way of mak- 
ing keys in quantity or even when only a few are 




Fig. 124. —Milling out Keys. 
needed, is to mill them out of a slab, by a cutter which 



i 5 o SHOP KINKS AND 

is practically a thick saw. This insures that the 
sides which are at an angle to each other and which 
do the work, and hence require to be true and well 
finished, have a perfect surface and a regular taper — 
the latter being of whatever angle is chosen, and 
readily determined by the graduated table of the ma- 
chine. From one slab, either planed off or milled on 
the two parallel sides, there may be milled a number 
of keys, " head and tail," the entire stock being used 
up if the width is rightly chosen. The illustration 
shows such a key partly milled out of the plate or 
slab. 

Projecting Keys. When a key seems to be too 
long, as in a crank-pin brass, don't cut it off. Things 
don't wear longer than they were at first. The brass 
has worn too narrow or thin. Put some packing back 
of it ; and you will find that the key has the right 
length again, And, by the way, drive your keys with 
a copper hammer or a raw-hide mallet; or, if you have 
neither of these handy, strike it through a block of 
hard wood. Never touch it with an iron or steel 
hammer. 

" Tapering Straight=Edges." When a green hand 
starts to learn the hardware business he generally gets 
sent the first day to find a ' ' left-handed screw-driver ' ' 
or a" crooked straight-edge." A tapering straight- 
edge sounds nearly as funny, but why should it not 
be useful about a work-bench, especially in laying out 
keys, etc. ? 

Split Keys. Be careful about trusting too much to 
split keys. They are usually made of poor stuff, and 
the short bend which is given them offers every facil- 
ity for their breaking. They generally manage to 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. -15 1 

break just at a time when such breakage can result 
in the most damage. Lock-nuts, or nuts which are 
pinned on, are much better for securing pins, etc. 

Key=Tapers and Sizes. Have as few sizes and 
tapers of keys about your shop as you can get along 
with ; you will save money in their manufacture and 
much more in their fitting. 

Removing Keys. Now that you have one of the 
ordinary keys running lengthwise of the shaft, and 
which gives you trouble in getting it out, you may 
as well have some way of getting it out when you 
want to take off the wheel. You can get this by 
having an offset on the outer end of the key ; 
threading this offset parallel with the shaft, and 
having a nut which you can screw on the threaded 
end until it jams on the end of the shaft, 
after which turning on the nut will gradually draw 
the key. 

Pinning Cranks on Shafts. In pinning the crank- 
hub on that shaft by a pin passing through a diam- 
eter of the hub, you are not taking advantage of the 
full strength that you could get out of the same pin. 
Suppose that instead of the pin passing through a 
diameter, as you have it, it were to go through the 
shaft at a point very near its circumference, forming 
a chord instead of a diameter. In that case it would 
present more material to be sheafed off than where it 
runs straight through. Where it goes through the 
diameter, the amount of material to be sheared off in 
order to permit the hub being moved on the shaft, is 
simply twice the sectional area of the keys ; but 
where it forms a chord, that amount may be more than 
trebled. 



i 5 2 SHOP KINKS AND 

Split Cotters. After all a split cotter is a useful 
thing and prevents much loss and damage. One 
very nice adaptation of it on a large scale is in the 
tail-bolts of the M. C. B. couplers on the N. Y. S. & 
W. Railway. In this case the split cotters are seven 
inches long and two and one-half inches wide, of 
flat steel about fifteen inches long, properly turned 
over. This key is made in the form of a cotter, al- 
though it has two cotters which pass through it ; and 
if these latter should drop out the key would be 
enough of a cotter to hold in place without much 
risk. (None of them have ever dropped out) . In 
similar way on the same road, the keys which drive 
and hold the bosses in the connecting-rod ends are 
kept from dropping out by having a lengthwise 
groove on the face, on the large end, and into this 
groove there engages a set-screw which passes through 
a lug bolted on the top or on the bottom of the stub- 
end. The set-screw will allow the key to be driven 
up or slacked back, without the screw itself being 
moved ; but for the key itself to drop out or fly is an 
impossibility so long as the end of the set-screw en- 
gages in the bottom of the groove. 

The Set=Screw is an invention of the devil. Either 
you want a piece to stay where it is without adjust- 
ment, or you want to adjust it in position. The set- 
screw permits of neither to any great degree. It slips 
if you want it to stay, and holds on like grim death 
when you want to back it out. If you ever had had 
to drill one out which had been broken off in its hole 
you would not be so in love with them. Look how 
they score up good shafts so that if you want to move 
the pulleys along you can never use the places where 
they were for bearings. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 153 

A compression hub is the only way to hold a pulley 
on a shaft. 

In Using Set>Screws (the best rule is not to use 
them at all where they can be dispensed with) care 
should be taken not to point them. In most cases a 
flat-bearing surface will answer; but for a good grip 
their ends should be cupped so as to leave a narrow 
circular rim about the edge of the end. Anyone who 
has ever seen a nice length of shafting spoiled by being 
spotted with set-screw points will acknowledge the 
wisdom of this recommendation. 

For Starting Slot=Headed Screws that have had the 
sides of the slots so worn down or battered that the or- 
dinary screw-driver will slip out of them, use an 
"old man" (such as is employed in drilling and 
tapping) , to hold the screw-driver bit down to its 
place. 'Tis a poor rule that won't work both ways; 
and the ' ' old man ' ' clamp may be used in backing 
out a screw just as effectively as in tapering the 
thread. 

The rionkey=Wrench may be put to use as a tube- 
cutter, among other things, by providing it with two 
sliding pieces, one for each jaw, and one of which has 
two rollers and the other a scoring- wheel. The ad- 
justment to fit any size pipe may be made in a 
moment. 

Solid Wrenches. A solid wrench devised long ago 
at " Cornell," and which will fit a nut perfectly and 
go on easily, is that shown in outline here. In order 
to prevent its being used the wrong way, the handle 
is made of the section shown at A ; one side being 
round and smooth and the other having a sharp 
edge. 



154 SHOP KINKS AND 

It is not likely that anyone, however ignorant or 




Fig. 125. — "Cornell" Solid Wrench. 

careless, will injure either a nut or the wrench very 
much by turning the latter backwards. 

Hammer-Eyes should, instead of being straight- 
sided, (either with or without taper) be larger at each 
side than in the center; that is, of slightly hour-glass 
shape. Then when the wedge is driven in, their bite 
on the handle will be greater than if their lengthwise 
section had parallel sides. It would be well also to 
have a bulge in the handle just below the head, not 
only to prevent its being driven in too far, but to 
give greater elasticity. This is Prof. Sweet's idea. 

Interchangeable Hammer. Sometimes one wants 
a copper hammer, sometimes one with a raw-hide 
head ; at other times, again, one with a wooden 
striking-part. Editor Colvin has invented and put 
on the market one having facilities for clamping just 
whatever sort you wish to use ; and it is highly to be 
recommended. There is a malleable iron head-part 
which may be opened out or screwed together to 
clamp the blocks of raw-hide or other material. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 155 

Another way of doing the same thing, perhaps not so 
well, would be to make a handle having in each end 
of the head a socket with a coarse female thread in 
which there may be screwed a block of wood, copper, 
raw-hide, hard rubber or other material, as desired, 
which is provided with the corresponding male 
thread. Where only a light blow is necessary, the 
head may be made of hard wood. The male thread 
for the lead piece may be cast in the iron or wooden 
female as a mold ; a black-lead wash being used. 

Improving Steel Squares. To greatly increase the 
usefulness of a small steel square, fit it with an adjus- 
table blade which is slotted out through nearly its 
entire length, to receive the shank of a milled head 
clamping-screw, which is passed through the square 
at such a point as will bring one edge of the extra 
blade exactly in the crotch of the angle of the square. 
With this arrangement the extra or beveling-blade 
may be placed at any desired angle relatively to the 
inner edges of the square, so as to permit its use in 
laying out lines on the ends of cylindrical articles, 
etc. With a little care, lines may be scribed on the 
face of the square to permit the bevel-blade being ad- 
justed so as to make an angle of thirty, forty-five or 
any other number of degrees. 

No one yet, so far as I have been able to judge, has 
had the wit to engrave on the blade or on the stock 
of a steel T-square a series of graduations such as 
those on the Gunther's scale, by which with a series 
of diagonal lines running across two sets of lines at 
right angles to each other, tenths of the graduations 
may be laid off with the dividers without trouble, or 
fine measurements may be made. 

With a wooden blade, a small piece of ivory, having 



156 SHOP KINKS AND 

just the same graduations as there are usually on the 
left-hand end of a surveyor's (Gunther's) scale, may 
be let in. 

Tools for One Hand. The ordinary run of machin- 
ists have only two hands apiece, and as there are 
many cases in which there seems to be great necessity 
for one or two extra, it may be well to call attention 
to the fact that there are many tools which are now 
held with one hand and adjusted with the other, 
which may be rendered much more effective by pro- 
viding them with stands or handles. Take the mi- 
crometer caliper, for instance. It is very easy to mill 
a slot in the top of a cubical block of hard wood or of 
cast iron or brass, to receive its bow, so that it may 
be held with its screw horizontally ; and boring out a 
slight recess at one end of the slot enables the mi- 
crometer to be used with the screw vertical ; the fit 
being a neat one. 

Measuring Pulley and Shaft Diameters may be very 
well done by a ve^y thin ribbon, in which the divisions, 
instead of being in inches and fractions of an inch, 
are 3. 141 6 inches each, divided into equal parts either 
in the ordinary binary method or decimally. Such a 
measure may be readily made by laying down 62.8 
inches and dividing it into twenty equal parts, each of 
which may be divided into sixteenths or tenths as de- 
sired. This tape wrapped around a pulley will give 
its diameter in inches more readily than it may be 
obtained with a two-foot rule. Mr. H. H. Suplee 
first called my attention to this, a number of years 
ago, in the works of L,ondon, Berry & Orton. 

Limit=Gage. A good idea in the way of a limit- 
gage to show variations of a given amount above and 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



157 



below standard, is made by trie Brown & Sharpe Co. 
There is a tapered notch which has on one side three 
marks. At one of these it is standard gage ; at the 
one nearer the edge, say .005 inch more ; at the one 
farthest from the edge, say .005 inch less. It is 
evident that the less the taper the greater the distance 
between these marks, so that any multiplication of 
the fineness of indication may be produced. 

Limit=Gage for Worm =Th reads. In gaging worm- 
wheels for hoisting-machinery, Edwin Harrington 
& Sons use a limit-gage, having its lower plug 
swiveled to adjust itself to the worm-pitch, and which 




Fig. 126. — Limit Gage for Worms. (Harringtons.) 

has a special limit device, as shown at A in Fig- 
ure 126, which is reproduced from ' ' Machinery. ' ' The 
cone plug is lightly held to the work by a spring, and 
the worm is of the right size when the plug is flush 
with the top of the gage. 

Distance Between Babbitted Holes. Where it is 
desired to have a definite distance between babbitted 
holes, as in a connecting-rod, the method employed 
by the builders of the Westinghouse high-speed 



i 5 8 SHOP KINKS AND 

engine insures absolute accuracy, while at the same 
time reducing the cost considerably. There is a jig 
made consisting of a horizontal slab, having in it two 
vertical pins, which are exactly as far apart as the 
desired distance between centers of the holes in the 
connecting-rod ; the diameters of the pins being prac- 
tically those of the crosshead pin and crank-pin. The 
rod, with the holes previously bored, is placed over 
these two pins and babbitted in position ; the pins 
serving as mandrels to insure the proper diameter, 
parallelism, etc., of the holes. 

Drilling Jigs. To get two holes in a jig in the 
same flat surface, at a desired distance from center to 
center, can be done by the aid of two hardened 
steel bushings ground to a known outside diameter 
and lapped out to fit the drills and reamers. If each 
has a flange they may be fastened to the jig at any 
desired distance. If there is some one standard diam- 
eter of tit on drills in the shop, these bushings may 
be made of an internal diameter to fit the tits, and 
this will lessen the cost of producing holes of any 
diameter. 

Distinguishing Jigs and Special Tools. Jigs and 
special tools such as cradles, gages, etc., may, if 
large enough, and with some unpolished surfaces, be 
painted vermilion, as with shellac varnish, which is 
renewed and dried when the tool has become dirty. 
This marks them out in dis f inct contrast from vari- 
ous castings and other pieces of metal around the 
shop, for which they might be mistaken, and enables 
them to be very easily found. Especially is this the 
case where some of them consist of castings which 
are duplicates, or nearly so, of some of the castings 
which are component parts of the product being 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



159 



manufactured. This happens sometimes in the case 
of using a casting as a sample or test-gage, to which 
to fit other parts. 

The experience with this method in the Ferracute 
Machine Co's. works has proved its great con- 
venience. 

True Repair=Work. Enough attention is not paid 
to the desirability of having repair- work true 
with the original work on pieces. Thus in injectors, 
where their check- valves have to be refitted, it is of 
course important to have the work central with the 
original lathe-work. This is sometimes neglected. 
In such cases, as in the railway shop, where there 
are hundreds of similar pieces to be worked on, it is 
well to have a jig which screws into the casing and 
will thus permit the tool working exactly centrally, 
as often as a valve requires refitting. 

Wrinkle in Center=Gages. One difficulty with 
center- gages is that they do not always have at first, 



mini 111 



lllllllllll 



lllll 




Fig. 127. — Adjustable Center-Gage. 

and even if they do, they usually soon lose, ac- 
curacy clear up to the point. A similar trouble 



160 SHOP KINKS AND 

existed with saw-sets which spread the teeth ; but that 
was got around by sawing a kerf in the angle and 
then driving the sides together with a ring. This 
course cannot so readily be pursued with center- 
gages, but the same result may be obtained by hav- 
ing the notch made of separate pieces, held together 
by a ring. These pieces may be ground separately 
and the contacting edges may be varied by sliding 
the one of them on the other. I show such a gage 
in Figure 127 ; and would say that as far as I know 
it is the only center-gage that will fit any size of 
inside threading- tool. 

Pinning of Files. Your man is complaining that 
his file ' ' pins ' ' or fills with copper filings when he 
is filing down those commutators. There are two 
ways by which he can prevent it ; one to use the file 
backwards for the finishing touches and the other to 
chalk the tool well every now and then ; the chalk 
will prevent the filings from sticking to the steel. 
Another way still is not to file the commutators, but 
to work them down with sand-paper — not on any ac- 
count with emery-cloth, because that will fill the 
places between the sections with a conducting film 
of oxide of iron. If you will take a block, work in 
it a semi-circle of the same diameter as the commu- 
tator, and line this semi-circle with glass-cloth, you 
can by turning the commutator at a high-speed and 
applying the glass-cloth-covered block, bring the 
commutator to as high a degree of finish as you 
desire. 

Ruining Files. If all those who use files had to 
pay the bills for them they would be better taken 
care of. In the first place, no file is improved by 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 161 

being thrown abont higgledy-piggledy in contact with 
other files and with other hard steel objects ; yet this 
is done every day, at the expense of the cut ting- edges, 
every one of which, if not presented properly to hard 
material, is as tender as a good conscience. Files 
that have been thrown about have nicks in their 
cutting-edges, (so-called teeth) and particularly in 
those on their narrow sides or the edges of the file 
itself. 

Then sufficient care is not taken about using new 
files only on good and particular work. A new file 
should never be taken to clean castings or to do any 
work where a fine result is not desired, and where there 
are case-hardened or chilled surfaces which will in- 
jure its teeth. Yet this is one of the most common 
difficulties to encounter in shops, particularly those 
where there is a tool- room and no one man has the 
certainty that the file which he ruins one day by reason 
of his being too lazy to go to the tool-room to get a 
more suitable one, will ever come back again to him. 
Files are also spoiled by being allowed to clog up 
with brass-filings and similar materials, which calls 
for the necessity of putting greater pressure on them 
in use, and produces irregular wear in spots on the 
file itself, as well as bad work on the article being filed. 

The system of sticking a file up in a bench by its 
tang is all very well in Chili or some such country 
where, unless that or some similar precaution is taken, 
the natives will slip them up their sleeves as fast as 
the owners' eyes are turned ; but it should not be at 
all necessary in this country, and particularly in a 
shop where there is a tool-room. 

False Economy in Fi!e=Buying. I see that you 
have been buying files of Judkins, and I know why 



162 SHOP KINKS AND 

you bought them : — because you saved somethiug on 
the first cost of every dozen. But if you will take 
some of those fourteen-inch ones which you have 
just bought, and weigh a dozen of them alongside of 
a dozen of the old ones of the same length, face, and 
cut, you will find that there is about one-fourth to 
one- third less metal in the new ones. And if you 
figure it up that you can at best get only one re- 
cutting out of them, and then will have only some 
scrap- steel about, you will find out that it pays to buy 
the heavier files at five per cent, or even ten per cent, 
higher price. Besides this, if you will let the old 
hands in the shop have their choice of the two, you 
will find that they will prefer the old kind, because 
they take hold better and require less elbow-grease 
back of them. It is a pretty fair indication of the 
value of the steel in a tool, to let the piece-work hands 
have a chance to use it or let it alone. The tool that 
requires frequent re-sharpening is the one which the 
piece-work hands don't like; and the file that requires 
biceps to make it do its work, instead of biting into 
the work as if it loved it, is the one which the piece- 
work hands and the ' ' old boys ' ' about the shop will 
let severely alone as soon as they find it out ; and it 
don't take a man long to find out such a thing as that. 
FiIe=Sharpening. A propos of files and their work, 
it is strange that an American invention, the sand- 
blast, has taken hold so well in England and on the 
Continent of Europe for file-sharpening, and seems to 
have been practically neglected on this side, in the 
same connection. If you will look at a new file you 
will find that there are on the ends of the teeth, cer- 
tain small-hooks, and these correspond to the wire- 
edge on a knife or a razor. Of course they are not 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 163 

desirable ; but there is no way of making file-teeth 
with a chisel, particularly if it is held by a machine, 
without having these same hooks. The sand-blast 
cuts files without such wire-edges, and re-cuts old ones 
better than they can be done by hand ; and many 
English establishments have their new files given a 
little sand-blasting before they are put in service, the 
object being to give them better cutting-edges than 
the makers turn them out with. 

Sectional Files. Purchasers of files usually buy 
them too light, so that they cannot be re-cut more 
than three times, unless they are large square files, 
in which case they may be re-cut as many as seven 
times as a maximum, producing at each successive 
re-cutting a flatter section than at the preceding one. 
At each cutting there is about ten to twelve per cent 
of loss due to grinding out the old teeth. The result is 
that ordinary files, even of the heaviest kind, cost 
more per pound of file and more per given weight of 
metal filed away by them than they should. 

When in Germany the last time, I looked into the 
question of this loss of file-material, and made some 
calculations based on actual experience, as to the cost, 
under the present system, of renewal; and the figures 
that I there got I here give. 

An ordinary file 450 m/m (say 18 inches) long by 
48 m/m (say 1. 2 inches) wide, weighs 3 kilograms, 
(6. 6 pounds,) if it is a heavy one, calculated to stand 
six or seven re-cuttings. It costs originally 2. 40 
marks, (say 60 cents) if of bastard cut, and 3 marks 
if smooth cut. Bach time that it is re-cut it loses 12 
per cent, of its weight. The price of re- cutting in 
Germany is o. 40 marks (10 cents) per kilogram for 



164 SHOP KINKS AND 

bastard and o. 60 marks for smooth. On this basis 
we have 







Price, Marks. 




Weight, Kg. Bastard. Smooth. 


1 new file, 


mg 


3. 2.40 3. 


1st re-cntti 


2. 


2nd " 




2.640 


3rd 




2.324 


4th 




2.046 


5th « 




1. 801 


6th 




1.585 


7th 




1.405 




14.801 x. 40=5. 92 ; x .60=8.88 




8.32 11.88 






8.32 



Price of two new files and seven 
re- cuttings of each one 

I find that they use in the several shops of the gov- 
ernment railways in Prussia, Saxony, Baden, etc., 
sectional files composed of two blades strained on a 
wrought-iron handle, supplied with a tang and a wood- 
en handle the same as any ordinary file. Each of 
these blades is composed of a triple thickness — two 
films of steel with a thickness of wrought iron be- 
tween ; the steel cut by machine and tempered glass 
hard. When one side of either blade is worn out it is 
turned to present the other side. Ordinarily the work- 
man has one bastard and one smooth blade on the 
holder. The blades are strained between a fixed pin 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 165 

at the tip of the "body," and a sliding pin at the 
butt, the latter operated by a little wedge. These 
blades, although as I said, glass hard, were so tough 
that they could be thrown up in the air ten feet and let 
drop on the shop floor without their breaking ; some- 
thing that could not be done to the ordinary files in 
the shop. When both sides of the blade are dull, 
they are re-sharpened by sand-blast — this being possi- 
ble only twice. The piece-work hands greatly prefer 
these sectional files to the ordinary ones, by reason of 
their superior hardness and convenience ; and the 
workmen, the foremen, and the purchasers, all said 
that their life was about three times as long as that 
of ordinary files. Taking the life of one twice as long 
for these glass-hard blades, as for non- sectional files 
of good quality ; assuming that one of the holders 
would last through the life of twenty pairs of blades 
(there is no reason why it should not last longer) and 
we have, taking the actual costs of sectional and non- 
sectional files in Germany, the following : 

2 blades, bastard cut, at M 1.60, - M 3.20 

2 blades, smooth cut, at 2.10, - 4.20 

4 re- cuttings by sand-blast, at 0.50, - 2. 

Proportion of the cost of the holder, - .15 



M 9-55 

as against 20.20 marks for the non-sectional file ; an 
economy of over 50 per cent. 

* There is also an economy of labor, because these 
files bite better than the non-sectional ; and they are 
more readily handled ; the proprietor of the shop 
finds also that he can deliver work more quickly, 



166 SHOP KINKS AND 

because it takes less time to file it up. As the sec- 
tional files are lighter there is an economy in freight 
and duty. The consumer does not require to carry so 
large nor so expensive a stock ; there is complete in- 
dependence of the re-cutter ; and as the sectional files 
are non-breakable there are no losses from this cause . 

The system is not adaptable with economy in man- 
ufacture to files less than twelve inches in length ; 
the sectional files cannot be cut on the edge, and no 
other than flat files can be made in this way ; but 
with all these drawbacks the sectional file is adopted 
exclusively by many governmental and private es- 
tablishments in Germany for all sizes from twelve 
inches upwards as greatly superior to the non-sec- 
tional. 

A visit to the factory reveals the fact that the 
blades are cut while under tension, in a machine 
which makes from ten to eighty cuts per inch of file- 
length, and makes them all alike at any desired angle 
to the length and to the surface of the blade. 

FiIe=Tangs have since time immemorial been made 
with tapering tangs ; and these are as well adapted to 
splitting the handles and to permitting the files to 
come out, as though they had been specially designed 
for that purpose. They should be made with parallel 
sides — that is, of rectangular cross-section ; of course 
avoiding any sudden change of section where they 
join the body of the file. 

The Best Vise=Hight. I should think that your fore- 
man would see, every time that he went over on that 
side of the shop, that yon have benchmen who are 
working at a disadvantage in having their vises too 
high. Watch that man as he works. The top of his 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



167 



vise is higher than his elbow-joint as he stands at the 
bench ; and every time that he makes a forward stroke 
he has to raise his whole arm, including his shoulder ; 
and even then he doesn't make a straight horizontal 
stroke. Now if you will lower that vise about two 
inches, or give the man a platform to stand on, you 
will enable him to do more work, and better work, 
with greater comfort, than at present. As the work- 
man's elbow will average between forty and forty-four 
inches from the floor, you may say that forty-two is 
the proper average. Fine, light work will permit 
of, in fact require, a higher vise, than coarse heavy 
work. 

These are among the little things, a few hundreds 
of which make up the difference between good work 
and bad work about a shop, or between success in 
general, and mediocrity. 

Bevel Filing. Where there is a great deal of thin 




Fig. 12S. — Bevel Filing. 



work to be filed at an angle — as the beveled edges of 
gun-lock plates , etc., the contrivance shown in Figure 



168 SHOP KINKS AND 

128 comes admirably in play. It is placed between 
the jaws of the vise and firmly holds the object at the 
desired angle, so that if yon file horizontally, the plate 
will be properly beveled. The spring between the 
jaws serves to throw them apart as the main vise is 
opened out. 

Finish versus Haterial. After several years of ex- 
periment, more or less costly, the great American tool- 
using public is beginning to wake up to the idea that 
you cannot make machine-tools out of filler and stone 
finish. It has been tried and found wanting, but no 
longer wanted. Machine-tool users have given hints 
to builders to put in a little more iron, and a little 
more iron still, and they have thickened up their pat- 
terns, and stiffened up their shafts, lengthened out 
their journals and bearings, and stretched their slides, 
and so on all the way around their tools, until they 
are in one sense like the boy's knife that had had five 
new handles and seven new blades. But they have 
the virtue that they stand up under their work and 
enable bigger and better work and more of it to be 
done than used to be the case. 

Finishing=Clamps. The clamps illustrated in Figure 
129, are suggested by Mr. J. S. Converse. The two 



Fig. 129.— Iron Polishing and Sizing Clamp. 

screws E F thread into the lower half and abut against 
the other, while babbitt bushes are inserted at J. They 
act as a polishing-clamp if run long enough, without 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 169 

supplying any more emery ; and are made in this shape 
to insure a rounder product than where the clamps 
are hinged. 

Truing off Fly= Wheels. There is often a slight lack 
of truth in fly-wheels, caused either by their being 
turned off bodily or being keyed on their shafts im- 
properly, or by local changes taking place, from their 
being turned down before they have got their "set," 
in which case they may spring a trifle out of line, 




Fig. 130. — Truing off Fly- Wheels. 

after being turned, and then sometimes the finish is 
not all that could be desired. While "fudging" 
should be discountenanced except where it is practi- 
cally absolutely necessary , it is well to be able to know 
how to " fudge " if there is 110 other way out of it. 
One instance of ( ' fudging ' ' is truing-off a fly-wheel 



170 SHOP KINKS AND 

after it is in place, and may be accomplished by using 
a piece of grindstone, with a heavy block as a steady- 
rest. This, of course, will not remove much metal, 
but it is practical where there is but a trifle to take 
off, especially where it is only desired to remove the 
tool-marks from the rim, in which case it answers 
admirably. 

Colors of Patterns and Core=Prints. In common 
with many other concerns the Ferracute Machine Co. 
has adopted black as the standard color for its pat- 
terns upon all surfaces representing cored surfaces of 
the casting. All core-prints are colored red, both 
where they project from the pattern, and wherever a 
core would appear in section, at all points thereof; 
for the core is supposed to be imbedded in the pattern 
in proper position. This following out of the shapes 
of the core, so to speak, with red varnish is frequent- 
ly of great convenience to the moulder as well as the 
pattern maker, in understanding which way about a 
core is inserted, how deep it goes, etc. 

The Ferracute people color all prints other than 
core-prints, such as are used for the placing of shafts, 
studs, staples, and other metal work which is to be 
4 l cast in," blue; this being suggestive of the 
wrought iron which is generally used for such pur- 
poses. 

All joints of the pattern proper, except those oc- 
curring in the territory occupied by the core, are of a 
yellowish tint, just as the varnish appears on the 
natural pine wood ; they doctor up with yellow varnish 
places which happen to be of any other color, as, for 
instance, if made of metal or of dark colored wood, 
leather, putty, etc. By this system it is always easy 
o know whether a pattern is complete or whether it 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 171 

is only a part of a whole, which of course is always 
indicated where there is any yellow surface. 

In choosing the solid colors, such as black, blue 
and red, (these being produced respectively by mix- 
ing lampblack, ultramarine and vermilion with shel- 
lac varnish) defects due to leather, putty and other 
materials, incident to cheap construction, can be cov- 
ered up, and a handsome looking pattern with a 
uniform surface can be produced. The joints before 
referred to which are not covered, are usually the 
easiest to make of a neat appearance by reason of 
their simple shape, and, furthermore, they are hidden 
when the pattern is put together. For these reasons 
this pattern is by many concerns preferred to the one 
often adopted where the pattern itself is yellow and 
the core prints black, or vice versa. 

Pattern=Finishing. Pattern-makers do not often 
consider the best way of holding work while it is in 
progress. For instance — in making the " false 
head " for a steam-cylinder head ; it is constructed as 
shown by the black lines in Figure 131, to fit into 
the cylinder-head, which is represented by the 



Fig. 113.— Lugs for Cylinder Head Patterns. 

dotted lines. Such false heads are usually designed 
so that the jaws of a common lathe-chuck will not 
reach over the round portion far enough to hold them. 
Now if the pattern-maker would just put on some 
small lugs (as shown at a, a,) on which the chuck- 



172 



SHOP KINKS AND 



jaws might catch, there would be no trouble in hold- 
ing the piece while the edges were faced off where 
they fit the main head. Then the main head could 
be chucked and the whole surface turned at one 
operation. This would save much time in the ma- 
chine-shop and avoid many straps and bolts. 

There are many other pieces — such as pistons, 
pumps, bonnets, valves, etc., on which it would be 
desirable to cast lugs in order to save time in hand- 
ling them in lathe or planer. 

Enlarging Patterns for Busts, etc. I saw a good 
wrinkle being used by an Italian in Paris. There is, 





Fig. 132. — Enlarging Patterns for Busts. 

say, a small head of somebody or other — whether it 
is of St. Peter or of Peter Cooper makes very little 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 173 

difference ; it is desired to make a colossal copy of it 
for use in a bronze- foundry. It is marked off into 
horizontal planes of equal distances apart; and into 
radial vertical planes axial with its central line ; then 
the distances are calipered and transferred to a honey- 
comb-frame, built up of thin boards arranged in 
planes which are symmetrical with the markings on 
the original. By cutting into these boards to the 
required distances you soon have a skeleton which 
corresponds in outline with the original. The spaces 
between the thin boards are filled up with plaster or 
other material, and there you have the enlarged copy 
made in a very cheap, accurate and practical way. 

Pattern=Making. A very good ' ' kink ' ' in pattern- 
making may be found in the shops of the Ferracute 
Machine Co. In order to produce cheaper patterns, 
some of which are rather temporary in their charac- 
ter, and all of which in these days of improvement are 
subject to alterations, they find that it pays best to 
put them together in as cheap a way as possible, 
without any regard to the elegant joiner- work of the 
old-fashioned pattern-makers, providing they give 
them strength enough to serve their purpose and get 
them the right size and shape. In general they pay 
a good deal more attention to the artistic form, in 
the way of nicely rounded fillets and corners, and 
harmonious curves, together with as much absence 
as possible of external rib- work, than they do to a 
beautiful job of fitting and joining. To accomplish 
this they use mill-dressed lumber, planed to accurate 
thickness as much as possible, and put their work to 
shape wherever they can with circular and band-saws 
and "Fox" trimming machines. They avoid ex- 
pensively-carved wooden fillets, putting in ready-made 



174 



SHOP KINKS AND 



lead and leather fillets, or oftener, extemporized 
ones of putty mixed with litharge and shellac, 
being careful to shellac the surfaces before applying 
them ; sometimes, with large fillets, putting in a few 
rows of nails by way of anchorage. 

To rub the putty down to proper shape, and give 
sufficient hardness, they use spherical-ended brass 
formers, which they keep on hand, made to all the 
different radii required. They find that polished 
brass works better than any other metal which they 
have tried, as it does not stick to the somewhat juicy 
mixture of putty and shellac varnish, as does iron, for 
instance. 

Pattern=riaker's Device. That pattern-maker is 
spoiling those patterns by jabbing an awl in them to 
hold them up by when he is shellacking them ; and it 
takes some force to get the awl out again. A better 
way is to have a tool consisting of a handle having 
three long fine points arranged in a triangle at its end, 
and with a clearing-rod running through its center, 
by which to press off the piece when through with it. 
This clearing-rod may be a separate piece of stout 
wire kept in a handy position, or it may be a trifle 




Fig. 133. — Pattern-Maker's Device. 

longer than the handle and be contained in the latter, 
and held away from its pointed end by a spring, so 
that when it is pressed on, the piece will be clear from 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 



175 



the holder ; and when it is no longer pressed on, the 
spring will retire back of the projection of the three 
holding-points. 

Shellac-Can. Pattern-makers may be judged very 
largely by their shellac-cans, just as restaurants may 
be given their due rank by the mustard-pot. The can 
shown in Figure 134 has a jacket around the out- 
side, to hold half an inch of oil or of water as a non- 
sticking seal for the cover. That is, there is an out- 




Fig. 134. — Shellac-Can. 

side can, or cup, to the bottom of which is soldered 
an inside one, also open at the top but about half an 
inch or an inch higher than the outside one. Then 
the cover fits in between them ; it having a steeple- 
like handle in which the handle of the brush finds 



176 SHOP KINKS AND 

room. I got this idea long ago in Syracuse, but for- 
get in what shop. 

Feeding Heavy Planks to a Saw. Brains should save 
muscles. It seems strange why men will exert the 
maximum amount of muscular effort required to do a 
particular piece of work, when by the exertion of a 
very small amount of brain- force they could save, 
hard physical effort. Here I see a man engaged in 
feeding long and heavy planks to a circular saw, on a 
long andrough table; there are no anti-friction rollers, 
and the work of feeding is severe. If that man would 
only stop a moment, and strew a little coarse sawdust 
on the table where the planks are to slide over it, he 
would find that they would serve as anti-friction roll- 
ers, or balls, to lessen the resistance of the planks be- 
ing slid over the table. But if he had charge of that 
saw-bench for seventeen years he would probably 
never think of it. 

In Making Very Slender Twist Holdings, say from 
half -inch rods, there is great danger of breaking the 
stock unless some special precaution is taken ; and 
when the wood is at all brittle, and the pieces to be 
made are long — say ten feet, as is sometimes needed 
in screen- work — it is absolutely imperative to do some- 
thing out of the ordinary run in order to get each piece 
perfect. This may be done by boring through a 
wooden block a hole of the exact diameter of the rod 
and passing the rod through it ; then clamping this 
block in the machine in such a position that the rod 
will have lengthwise feed as in ordinary cutting, let 
the cutters work their way through the block form 
their own passage. They will work the rod regularly 
into the screw or twist, and the block will remain as 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 177 

a ' ' doctor, ' ' holding the rod with absolute smooth- 
ness and allowing it to be rotated with freedom while 
being cut in the spiral. 

Of course for such work round stock is absolutely 
necessary ; but as it would be impossible to make it 
out of such fine stuff, and practically impossible to 
make it out of any round stuff, unsupported, that will 
be found no hardship. 

Twist=Cutters. There is one class of twist-making 
machines which work by two sets of rotating cutters, 
one right and the other left, clamped to opposite 
sides of a rotating disk, and cutting the material from 
without towards the center. The knives of this ma- 
chine have, of course, to be made of a difficult contour 
to produce the desired outline ; but they do not by 
any means fit the contour of the surface produced, 
any more than straight molding-knives correspond 
with the moldings which they produce. It would 
seem a very pretty piece of geometrical projection to 
work out the proper outline of the cutters for any 
given inclination of the cutter-head, (and in this ma- 
chine the cutter-head has a variable inclination to 
the axis of the piece) but all this may be done away 
with by first making a template corresponding exact- 
ly to the contour of the molding which forms the 
twist. This may be the arc of a circle, or it may be 
an elliptical curve, or it may be any one of a hundred 
othe curves ; but, of course, a template may be made 
to match it. Next a wooden disk is turned up to fit 
the molding, lying snug between two threads or turns 
of the twist. Then taking an arc of this disk-cir- 
cumference equal to the angle at which the cutters 
are to be presented to the stock in cutting it, the 
material is cut down by a saw to the central plane of 



178 SHOP KINKS AND 

the disk, and then divided so as to leave a step as it 
were. The cutting-line will not be radial but will be 
a chord ; the piece removed will be a segment of the 
disk, and the contour revealed on the piece that is 
cut away, or on the shoulder that is left, will be the 
template for the knives ; that at one end of the chord 
for the right-hand knives, and that on the other end for 
the left-hand knives. 

The work may be made even more simple by screw- 
ing together two disks and turning them down to fit 
the twist, being particular to make the parting come 
at the line where the curves leave each other, so that 
cutting one simple saw-kerf down from the face of 
one of the disks will cause the segment to drop off 
and leave the templates revealed. Pryibils got up 
this plan. 

In Planing Gummy Timber keep at hand a greasy 
rag, with which to wipe off the face of the plane-body ; 
it will help wonderfully. 

A Spur Chuck for Wood=Turning, which is especial- 
ly good for holding small pieces of soft wood without 
spoiling them, is shown in Figure 135. The four spurs 




Fig. 135. — Spur Chuck for Wood-Turning. 

are parallel on their outer surfaces only, thus com- 
pressing the wood between them without spreading 
the fibers around them. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 179 

A Depth=Gage for Boring Holes in Wood is very read- 
ily made by boring a bole endwise through a small 
wooden block and sticking it on the bit ; its length 
being equal to the projection of the bit, less the de- 
sired depth of the hole. 

Steam=Hammers as Steam=Consumers. The 
"Shovel Engineer" who has the pleasure (?) of 
feeding the boiler furnace the black diamonds is no 
great admirer of steam-hammers except in the ab- 
stract. They cause him too much work. Their 
capacity for steam is practically unlimited. Their 
appetite is great, and their capacity quite commen- 
surate therewith. There is only one way of getting the 
best of them — and that is to make them furnish their 
own steam. This would sound like perpetual motion 
or conservation of energy, or something like that, 
but it is the only simple common-sense economy. In 
nine cases out of ten where steam-hammers are used 
it is to forge up hot stock ; and to get stock hot it is 
necessary to have great heating- furnaces. All that is 
necessary to do is to have a passage for the combus- 
tion-gases of the heating- furnaces around boilers of 
the requisite capacity, and the problem is solved — 
solved in the most satisfactory way, too; because 
when the hammers are most busy and require most 
steam there is most heat in the furnaces. In such a 
hammer-shop as that of the Baldwin Locomotive 
Works, where the hammers are "made to furnish 
their own steam n there is always steam to blow off. 
Yet I have seen shops where good coal was shoveled 
under the boilers which supplied the hammers, and the 
heating- furnaces were allowed to waste all their 
heat. 

There are ways and ways of doing things. 



180 SHOP KINKS AND 

Conduits for Air=Blasts. Your men at those forges 
are complaining that they do not get the blast that 
they want. It would be a wonder if they did, with 
the arrangement of conduits that you have to lead 
the air from the fan to where it is needed. You have 
the fan rigged up in an out-of-the-way corner where 
the air-supply to it is not very free ; that lessens 
somewhat the amount that will be drawn in by the 
blades. You must remember that they are only 
skimming the air anyhow, and if there is not much 
to skim they will not be able to skim much from it 
and pass it where it is needed. Then you have a 
sort of a wooden pipe which has been cobbled up of 
almost anything in the way of timber that you had 
about ; and it takes four or five sharp turns horizon- 
tally and one or two vertically to skip around and 
over obstructions ; so that by the time that the first 
outlet is reached there is not much current in the 
pipe. You should note that while air will press 
equally in every direction, no matter what the shape 
of the vessel that contains it, air-currents are differ- 
ent things, and require, in order that they shall be 
passed on with minimum loss from friction, passages 
as nearly straight and smooth as can be obtained. 

It would have been better for you to have got some 
large tin pipes, such as are used to carry hot air from 
furnaces in houses where they know what they are 
doing. The smooth sides of the tin would not retard 
the air-currents and make them lag ; there could be 
easy curves and few of them, and then you would 
have had a good air-current delivered under pressure 
where you wanted it. If you had such a pipe as 
yours to carry hot air in your house up- town, you 
would never know whether there was a fire in the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 181 

furnace or not, except by going down and looking at 
it ; the registers in your rooms would never tell you 
anything about it. 

Hollow Fires. Where you want an even heat, why 
don't you learn from your neighbor across the way, 
and have a hollow fire ? You have a bottom tuyere. 
Wet your coal well, pack it around the inlet and 
raise the walls as high as you need them. Put in 
the kindling and fill the middle of the ring with 
loosely-coked coal as high as the walls are, and then 
make a dome roof over it, good and thick. Make 
an opening in front to gain entrance ; or, if you want, 
have it there before-hand by building over a round 
bar of iron and then withdrawing this. 

Hammering Pentagons. When you want to take 
the conceit out of the average blacksmith, just ask 
him to hammer out a number of pieces of uniform 
five-sided section without any dies or other formers. 
It will probably puzzle him. But should he succeed 
in producing a regular pentagon, you may bring from 
out of your sleeve another test which will be very 
apt to finish him — namely, the equilateral triangular 
section. Of course, the difficulty is that opposite 
every side in any piece having an odd number of 
sides, there is an angle instead of a flat parallel side 
to rest on the anvil, and in the three-sided piece it is 
worse than in any other. 

Making Cylinder=Jackets. A cored cylinder-jacket 
is not always a very desirable thing, as one never 
knows just what the condition of the metal is, next 
the core. It cannot be revealed by boring, as can 
flaws in the liner or cylinder-wall proper. Another 
trouble in casting steam-engine cylinders is that there 



182 SHOP KINKS AXD 

is nearly always a "pipe end" which, if made extra 
long, so that it can be cut off leaving nothing but 
good metal in the cylinder, makes the casting rather 
more expensive than if no such precaution was taken. 
A very good thing which I saw in the shops of the 
Bollinckx establishment in Brussels, does away with 
both these difficulties. For Corliss engines, of which 
this concern makes a specialty, there are two cast- 
ings made ; one containing the cylinder- wall proper, 
with the nozzle, for say the crank-end valves, and a 
suitable flange, and the other for the jacket and the 
nozzle for the out- end valves. The first is turned off 
and the second bored out, and the latter forced hy- 
draulically over the former so that there is an abso- 
lutely steam-tight joint between the two ; and at the 
same time no cylinder- flaw is possible. 

" False=Back " Couplings. If you have ever had to 
couple a 2j-inch hose to a 2-inch pipe that was fitted 
with a regulation 2-inch hose-thread, you have prob- 
ably had to use a ' * false-back ' ' female coupling ; 
and this is expensive to make, and unduly heavy. 
In the early ^o's I devised and made in considerable 
quantity, and the Journal of the Franklin Institute 
illustrated, a coupling in which the two parts were 
cast together with a water-tight fit. The head was 
first cast, and a square groove turned in it ; this was 
then coated with black-lead wash, set in the mold, 
and the shank cast in it. The two parts being- 
chucked by the shank in the lathe, the thread in the 
head was cut ; then a spanner was applied to the 
head and the lathe run slowly, to cause the shank to 
turn in the head, which it did, with a water-tight 
fit. 

The idea was so good that a Providence firm 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



183 



patented it, supposedly without knowing anything of 
my having originated it, for finding that I was filling 
the country with them, it wrote me to stop it and 
pay damages. 

Interchangeable Pulley=riolding. There are times 
when the Lane & Bodley foundry might be mistaken 
for an undertaking-establishment, to judge from a 
number of coffin-like boxes visible. But they are 
only core -boxes used by this concern in pulley-mold- 
ing. In this foundry the pulley- arms are formed by 
cores and the rims are swept up. The same core- 
boxes are used for several different lengths of arms ; 




Fig. 136. — Plan and Section of Arm Core-Boxes. 

any number of arms desired may be given the pulley. 
As shown in Figure 136 there is a core-box forming 
half an arm ; two of these put together make the core 
for a whole arm ; and six or eight of these placed 
around a center, form the arms of a pulley. The 
hub-piece E may be taken off and replaced by one of 
another diameter of the same standard thickness ; 
each core-box has two pieces for forming the web be- 
tween G and D, and two end-pieces. For a fly-wheel 



184 SHOP KINKS AND 

with square rim-section, cores are made in the core- 



■~/.""7 




wmm, 

Fig. 137. — Section Showing Sweep for Making the Rims. 
room, and while they are drying the molder sweeps 




Fig. 138. — Hub Pattern with Arm-Core in Place. 
up a level bed for them, using a spindle slipped into 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 185 

an iron socket. Figure 137 shows the sweep ; I being 
the center line of the arm, ^half the depth of the hub, 
G the depth of the core-box arm, and H half the rim- 
depth. 

After sweeping up the bed, the sweep is lifted out 
and the hub-pattern slipped over the spindle as 
shown in Figure 138 ; the arm-cores are placed around 
it at equal angular distances ; the rim-pattern, which 
is only of a segment, is bolted to a second sweep arm 
and put in place as in the same Figure ; then the sand 
MNO is rammed up, the segment moved around, and 
so on until the entire rim is molded. The check-sand 
M is lifted off, being rammed on the lifter-ring L. The 
rim-segment may then be taken out and the inside of 



TE 



^S 



Fig. 139. — Wedge for Splitting the Rims. 

the check and the sand NO be smoothed up. After 
removing the sweep F } a small cope is made to cover 
the hub, and flat cores used to cover the rim. 

If the pulley or fly-wheel is ordered in halves (as 
it should be) rim-lugs are bedded in the sand ; a flat 
core i-inch thick is put in the sand, cutting the hub 
in two ; and on this are the cores for the bolt-holes. 
At the rim there is a wrought-iron wedge as shown 
in Figure 139, the lower end Q being larger than the 
upper end R ) so that if it is driven towards Q it will 
free itself and not break away the thin edge of iron at 



i86 



SHOP KINKS AND 



the sides. This wedge is thicker at the upper end S 
than at the lower end T. The bolt-cores for the rim- 
lugs are put through the holes in the wedge [/, which 
is well painted with graphite. When the casting is 
made and cleaned from sand, a few smart blows on 
the upper end of the wedge splits the pulley, and the 
break follows the weakest point, at the bottom of the 




Fig. 140. — Hub Pattern. 

V of the wedge. When the pulley is fitted together, 
its broken edges make a better joint than if planed. 

One set of hub-patterns answers for several pulleys. 
Their shape is shown in Figure 140. The hubs are 
hollow with loose tops, which may be removed after the 
hub is rammed up in the sand, and the pins, which 
hold the lugs F, with their core-prints X y may be 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 187 

drawn in from the outside of the hub. After the hub 
is taken from the sand the lug Y and the splitting 
core-print W may be drawn from this space. The 
core-prints regulating the bore- diameter are centered 
by being slipped over the spindle, which also centers 
the hub as shown at Z, Figure 138. 

Casting Threads. About Centennial year, I was 
called upon to make some hose-couplings 10 inches 
in diameter for suction hose for a pulsometer that was 
pumping out some bridge- caissons. Such couplings 
had never been made ; and as I did not want them to 
cost any more than was necessary, as it was a rush 
job, and I was tolerably certain that I would never get 
another order, I cast about for a plan to make them 
cheap, and yet give satisfaction. I decided to cast the 
threads, both male and female; and this I did, consid- 
ering the threads only as a means of holding the two 
sections together, and relying on the washers (which 
were regular gaskets) to make them water-tight. 
The thread was four per inch, of triangular section. 
(If I had it to do over again I should make it three per 
inch. ) After casting, the couplings were chucked and 
the thread just cleaned out with a tool to get the sand 
out of them. I had no complaint about the coup- 
lings. But as to the hose that went with them : — as 
Kipling says, " that is another story, " which I tell 
elsewhere. 

Casting Straight=Armed Pulleys. There was a 
time when few foundries would trust themselves to 
make pulleys with other than curved and sometimes 
double-curved arms ; the object being to counteract 
the cooling-strains, particularly where the rims were 
thin. But as pattern-makers and molders got to 
understand better the laws of shrinkage and of 



i88 



SHOP KINKS AND 



shrinkage- strains, it became possible to make 
pulleys, the hubs of which would not shrink so much 
as to draw away from the arms. Straight arms are 
more sightly and take less metal than the curved ones, 
and are now the rule. 

Forming Beads in Holds. There is a device got out 




Figs. 141 and 142. — Forming Beads in Molds. 
by a Southerner, by which to form beads in molds, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 189 

and which should be useful in foundries where water- 
pipes, gas- pipes, &c., are cast. The mold rests on a 
chill-plate which is bored to receive a toggle joint, 
some links and a crank-plate, the sleeve of which lat- 
ter turns in a guide-plate ; and through this sleeve 
there slides a square shaft. There are rollers turning 
on pivots which are shrunk in the outer ends of the 
toggle joint, the center of which latter is connected to 
the square shaft. Two or three turns of the handle 
form the bead. 

How to Use Graphite Crucibles. People melt faster 
and faster now than they used to, and then complain 
that their graphite crucibles do not last so long. It 
would be a wonder if they did ; just as it would be a 
wonder if the bearings of an engine that ran sixty 
miles per hour for three hundred and sixty miles a 
day, would last as many months as when the same 
engine was running thirty miles per hour and one 
hundred and eighty miles per day. But to get all 
the durability or ( ' life ' ' out of a crucible that there 
is in it, don't submit it when new to the hottest fire 
that it is to have ; use it for the first several times in 
a new fire that has not reached the fiercest stage. For 
the highest heats, use old pots. 

Choice of riolding=Loam. Choose a loam which is 
free from iron and from lime, magnesia or other alka- 
line matter. If you cannot get a good natural mold- 
ing-loam make one of sand and clay. The alkali in 
a poor loam will make it too hard and close and cause 
the metal to boil. 

Venting Greenland Holds. Where molding-sand 
is too strongly clayey, green-sand molds may be im- 
proved by top- venting and side- venting with a wire, 



i 9 o SHOP KINKS AND 

or by the use of ashes in the bottom ; and care must 
be taken not to swab too freely before drawing the 
pattern. 

Renewing Molding=Sand. Founders often forget 
that molding-sand gets the life burned out of it and 
requires to be renewed from time to time. Facing- 
sand of course helps to keep up the strength or life, 
but not all that is put into the mold remains in the 
sand ; part of it is dissipated and part is carried away 
on the castings themselves — besides which much of it 
gets out among the ramming-sand and in the general 
supply. Of course the constant addition of new ma- 
terial raises the floor-level, but it is always easy 
to get rid of this excess of material. Experiments 
made to use the same sand over and over again with- 
out renewal have proved failures ; scabs are sure to 
appear as the result, sooner or later. 

Coal for Facing can be better ground in a rattle-box 
or tumbling-barrel than in any grinding-mill proper ; 
and the regular rattle-box which is used to clean 
castings answers just as well as a more expensive af- 
fair. Put the coal in with some heavy scrap iron — 
preferably in ball form, as there will be fewer pieces 
knocked off. It will take less power, and you can 
make more in a given space of time. 

Venting Cores. Where a core cannot be vented 
from the top, there should be laid a good-sized pipe 
in the mold-bed just below the position of the core, 
and the latter should be well fastened down — a top 
chaplet answering in green or dry sand. 

Where a core is vented through the side of a mold, 
whether it be a sand or a loam mold, the core should 
be well fastened down by a bolt or stirrup where 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. i 9 l 

attached to the core- iron, else the kick back may tend 
to displace the core laterally. Care should be taken 
in pouring to see that the core- vents burn clear and 
blue, not yellow ; a yellow flame usually indicating 
that the vent is stopped with metal. The yellow 
flame is caused by metal reaching the chaff, straw, 
ashes, coke or other material in the interior of the 
core. 

The colder the metal is run, the more it will need 
venting. If it is hot and lively it will be able to 
flatten itself against the mold- wall, even against the 
pressure of the gases which are trying to get out 
through the pores of the core; but if it is sluggish, 
there will be much less difficulty in a current of gas 
making an impression on the surface of the metal, 
and the result will be a poor surface. 

The use of chaff and straw for venting cores has been 
adopted for the reason that they make lighter cores, 
and that in making them, it is somewhat easier to get 
the proper outline ; but the cores are not quite so safe 
as those vented with ashes. There is more danger of 
spoiling the casting by the metal breaking through, 
with chaff or straw rope in the inside, than with ashes, 
which do not permit the metal to get so far. 

Coring Holes in Lugs. Some shops which are not 
well fitted with boring-apparatus will core holes in 
lugs, fins or flanges, instead of casting them solid and 
boring the holes. Very often in such case the hole 
will have its sides blown by reason of the cores not 
having been properly vented, or having been wet, or 
for some other reason the work of coring being defec- 
tive. A defective place in a lug having a hole by 
which a heavy piece is to be lifted, may cause a seri- 
ous or even fatal accident. 



i 9 2 SHOP KINKS AND 

Burning Together a Core=Tube. Burning together 
the two parts of a broken core- tube is done by making 
a core of an outside diameter equal to the inside diam- 
eter of the tube, and about a foot long, sticking one 
end of it in each of the two ends that are to be burned 
together, and bringing the parts nearly in contact as 
they are to be, leaving about an inch between them ; 
then making a two-part outside mold with three gates 
in it, by which the metal may be poured in at one end 
on the top, through one hole and run out at the other; 
then the manner of pouring may be reversed and the 
metal run the other way. Two or three such pour- 
ings and reversals will melt the ends of the tube, and 
they will be found burned together in a joint which is 
stronger than the original juncture. 

Straightening Core=Tubes. Core-tubes that have 
got bellied may be straightened by pening ; but it will 
be found that after they have been straightened once 
or twice, pening no longer has any effect on them ; 
then the only thing to do with them is to break them 
in two in the center, put the two former ends together 
for a new center, and burn them together. 

Halved Cores. In making round cores in halves the 
two parts should be put together with a clay slip about 
as thick as cream. 

Every core-box which is made in halves should 
have some method of insuring that the two parts come 
together exactly without leaving a step or fin. A 
shoulder on one half, against which the other half 
butts, prevents this, but does not keep the parts from 
sliding lengthwise. Dowels with corresponding holes 
cost a trifle more, but are more satisfactory. Perhaps 
a shoulder to withstand the tendency to crosswise 



MACHIXE SHOP CHAT. 193 

sliding, and one pin to keep the parts from sliding 
lengthwise, will be found best for most cases. 

For Sweeping up Loam=Cores on Barrels, there 
should be a trestle having semicircular bearings in 
which the core-center may be rotated, as journals ; 
then there should be a straight-edge, longer than the 
core is to be, and having an edge beveled almost down 
to an absolute line ; this can be used to strike the 
entire length of the core at once by turning the latter 
in its bearings. If there is no squared end on the 
core-center, on which to put a crank-handle, a handle 
may be put on by clamping. 

Removing Tortuous Cores. There are places where 
a cored passage is very tortuous, where it is difficult 
to get out the cores ; and in such cases there should 
be left hand-holes about three inches in diameter, the 
metal around which should be of extra thickness (the 
re-inforce coming on the inside) so as to prevent the 
existence of these holes making any likelihood of the 
wall of the castings giving way at this point ; and also 
to permit the holes to be plugged up by shallow screw- 
plugs if this be desired. 

(Bollinckx, of Brussels, never uses screw-plugs ; he 
forces cylindrical plugs inhydraulically, even in steam 
cylinder- walls.) 

About Core=Sand. Core-sand is the most difficult 
material for the founder to get good. It requires to 
be not only porous but adhesive. About the best is 
that which has been formed by the decay of rock con- 
taining felspar, but where (as on a hill-top) it has 
not had a chance to get water- worn, as will be the 
case with sand found lower down. There will also 
be less vegetable matter in sand from the top of a hill 



194 SHOP KINKS AND . 

than in that from the valley below. Where such 
good natural core-sand cannot be had, there may be 
used free sand or pounded blast-furnace cinder, tem- 
pered with clay, yeast, pea-flour or horse-dung — but 
it must be remembered that any vegetable or animal 
substance added to give porosity is apt to cause boil- 
ing of the metal. Fresh sand should be used every 
time for cores ; old stuff will not do. 

Core-sand should be, above all things, porous for 
small cores and for those surrounded by thin walls of 
metal ; it must be just as weak as it can be and be 
handled and kept in shape. It should be so that it 
can be readily rapped out of a casting ; so that on 
tapping the casting with a hammer the sand will run 
out in a stream. No matter what quality of sand is 
used for cores it will be improved by ' ' mealing " in a 
rattle-box or other apparatus which will insure perfect 
mixing. Some core-sand takes much more heat to 
dry it than others ; and if this class is not allowed to 
be perfectly dry before using, it will blister and scab 
the face of the casting. Some men get cleaner cast- 
ings than others just because they use their molds and 
cores while hot, and for no other reason. There is 
greater necessity of this in damp weather than in dry, 
and in damp districts than in dry ones. 

Confined cores are best made of free sand because it 
is more readily knocked out by reason of its loose 
texture. 

Rock-sand serves well for short cores that are held 
at both ends and which have end- vents ; but for long 
cores the effect of the clay which it contains must be 
tempered by free sand. 

Core-sand should be much coarser than molding- 
sand, as greater porosity is required of it; and for this 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 195 

reason it will not do to mix old core-sand with the 
molding-sand. This being the case, the old sand 
which is shaken ont of the castings should be kept 
away from the molding-sand. 

One good core-sand mixture is ten parts of white 
sand with one of flour, and water enough to make it 
work easily. This will do for small round and square 
jobbing work and for where the iron in pouring does 
not strike the core. 

The apprentice should be set to work making cores 
the first thing. You will find that almost every good 
molder is an exceptionally good core-maker ; care and 
experience in this line leading to success in molding. 

Wooden Core=Boxes. I see that you are using 
wooden core-boxes for those round cores ; and if you 
will take the trouble of inspecting and calipering 
those which have been made for a while you will 
find most of them out of round very perceptibly ; the 
wood having shrunk unequally. Where a core-box 
for round cores is to be used several times at wide in- 
tervals, it should be of cast iron, which has the habit 
of keeping its shape. 

Another thing that I notice in your foundry, is that 
some of the men do not wet their core-irons with 
clay- water or clay-cream before putting them into the 
sand. The sand will not cling to them well without. 
And in the large cores you are using wrought-iron 
core-irons, which cost much more than cast-iron ones 
and are not quite so good, not having so many rough- 
nesses for the sand or the clay-wash to stick to. You 
will find, too, that you can use ashes for the center of 
those large cores, serving the purpose of vent- wires. 

Baggy Cores. The trouble with those cores is that 
they are ' ' baggy ' ' from being heated too hot in the 



196 



SHOP KINKS AND 



core- oven ; and they are slack on the core-bar through 
contraction of the core and expansion of the core-iron 
taking place at the same time. Those are large cores ; 
and instead of heating them so high to dry them they 
should have been put in the stove after each couple 
of courses of straw and loam. Made that way they 
will take more time, but you will have fewer spoiled 
cores and ruined castings, and it will pay better in 
the end. 

Core=Oven Doors. The Straight Line Engine Com- 




Fig. 143. — Core-Oven Doors. (Straight Line Engine Co.) 



pany has its core-oven doors counter- weighted in a 
manner which insures both sides going together 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 197 

without guides, as shown in Figure 143 ; the ropes 
being strung in as is indicated by the numbers. 

Core=Oven Shelves. In the Cresson shops at Ger- 
mantown Junction, Philadelphia, the core-oven is 
cylindrical and has in the center a vertical shaft bear- 
ing circular shelves for the cores ; these shelves being 
loose on the shaft so that any one of them may be 
brought around in front of the door without disturb- 
ing the others. As they rest on collars fastened 
by set-screws only, the vertical distances between 
shelves may be varied to suit the cores being dried. 
The heat from this oven is taken from the brass- 
furnaces instead of being wasted. 

Core=Oven Cars. There is rather a good thing in 
core-ovens in the shops of the Straight Line Engine 
Company, (where indeed one can get a hat-full of 
wrinkles in short order.) This concern has a large 
core-oven with four rails for cars, equal distances be- 
tween centers. There are two cars half the length of 
the oven. They can be set side and side for large 







^--J?^. ° 

S?" "*v> 

/,' N\ 


^- .-^ 

/.' N \ ° 








\ 


a v 


f 


\ 


w 


/ 






m ° 


5 


H ,y )H 








l W L 


_J 










V V 









Fig. 144. — Core Oven Cars. (Straight Line Engixe Co.) 

square or round cores, or end to end on either of three 
places for round cores. The journals are arranged to 
run without oil. The slots for the journals are long 
enough to permit the cars to run twice the depth of 
the ovens before reaching- the end. The wheels have 



i 9 8 SHOP KINKS AND 

the flanges outside the rails only, which is all right 
for cranes or for cars of this kind, where they run on 
straight tracks. The inside flanges, when they hit 
the rail at all, are considered to do more harm than 
good. 

Portable Brass=Furnace. In the Paris works of 
Mons. A. Piat, (an engineer and machinist who has 
done more than any other one person to make popular 
the use of herring-bone gears) they use a portable 
brass-furnace which has several good points. The 
crucibles are mounted firmly on a fire-brick base in a 
wrought-iron casing lined with fire-clay, and mounted 
on wheels. In starting up, where blast or strong draft 
is desired, this portable furnace is set in a chimney 
way ; but once the melt is made the whole affair is 
brought to the pouring-place, and as the crucible, case 
and all, is swung on trunnions, pouring is readily 
done, always with hot metal. 

How to Get Good Castings. I don't suppose that . 
any one could give in ten minutes a treatise on the art 
of iron-founding ; but in ten minutes the entire prin- 
ciple of successful castings may be stated. For in- 
stance, there your man is making a mold in which he 
is going to put the runner in a thin part instead of a 
thick ; a big "don't " would be of use to him if he 
would heed it. Then he is going to run the metal 
in at the top, although it is a deep casting. The man 
next but one to him is going to run that flanged pipe 
at a point in the length of the pipe instead of at the 
flange ; and I see that that long thin branched piece 
has been run at one end instead of from the center. 

It has not taken me two minutes to point out three 
or four very grave faults in your foundry-practice, from 
actual observation of bad work ; and I believe that by 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 199 

going about and seeing bad work in other foundries it 
would not take me long to get up rules which would 
not require ten minutes to pronounce, but which would 
enable good work to be done if the men would only 
pay attention to them and use their knowledge-boxes 
more than their tobacco-boxes. 

Cooling=Strains on Ring Castings. To see just how 
the cooling-strains come on a ring casting, such as is 
used for piston-packing rings, cut or break a piece out 
of one and commence to turn it down from the outside. 
When expensive, and where perhaps there is only one 
casting to be made, there may be made a pattern like 
the core that is wanted. This may be molded in the 
sand with strengthening-wires lengthwise and cast 
with a composition of two parts of brick-dust and one 
of plaster of paris, mixed with water. When this is 
set it should be taken out of its own mold in which it 
was made, and put into the one in which it is to act 
as a core ; care being taken not to let any cold air get 
to it. 

Casting Solid Iron Balls. The reason why a ball 
cannot well be cast solid in the center is that it cools 
first on the outside next the mold, and the metal in the 
inside pulls away from the core, towards the outside 
layer. If the ball be chilled, the trouble is more pro- 
nounced than if it is a green-sand casting. This mat- 
ter may be remedied somewhat by l ' feeding ' ' the 
ball while in the mold, up to the last point at which 
it is possible to make it take more metal. 

Weights of Castings. In figuring up the weight 
which a casting will have there must be considered 
(1). the weight of the pattern, (2) the specific gravity 
of the pattern, and (3) the specific gravity of the 
metal from which it is to be poured ; but this cannot 



200 SHOP KINKS AND 

be done if there are core-prints on the pattern. Where 
there are no core- prints it will usually be found that 
a cast-iron casting will weigh 14 times as much as a 
pine pattern, 13.4 times as much as one of linden 
(bass), 12.8 as much as alder, 12.8 as much as birch, 
10.2 as much as pear, 9.7 times as much as beech, 
and 9 times as much as oak. With metal patterns 
cast-iron castings will weigh about the same as zinc, 
0.89 as much as tin with 20 to 25 per cent, of lead, 
0.84 as much as brass, 0.64 as much as lead ; while 
an iron casting from an iron pattern will weigh about 
0.97 times as much. 

The rielting- Points of the Metals differ, of course, 
according to circumstances ; but the following will 
be found to be fair averages and should be kept for 
reference : 



Cast iron 

Gray pig iron 

Copper 

Gold 

White pig iron 

Silver 

Zinc 

Lead 

Bismuth 

Tin 

Most alloys melt at lower temperatures than would 
be due to the melting-points of the simple metals of 
which they are compounded. Phosphorus increases 
the fluidity of most metals ; sulphur decreases it ; 



Deg. 

Fahr. 


Deg. 

Centigrade 


2507 


*375 


2327 
1992 
1992 
1967 
1832 


1275 

1088.8 

1088.8 

io75 
1000 


779 
630 

512.6 


4i5 

337-2 

267 


45 J -4 


233 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 201 

zinc increases the fluidity of brass, German silver and 
bronze, and lead does the same thing in bronze and 
most other tin-alloys. 

Chilled Castings. You seem to be laboring under 
a bad case of imperfect chill, over there in the foun- 
dry. If you will try using a little " spiegeleisen " 
you will find that you will get more chill than you 
now have; and if what you try does not give enough, 
you can try until you get what you want. I have 
seen chills eight inches deep at Gruson's foundry, in 
Buckau, near Madgeburg, run off as an e very-day 
occurrence. What they can do there you can do here. 
You may not want to get eight inches of chill, as you 
may not be casting sections for cast-iron forts as they 
were, but you can get just as much or as little chill as 
you want, always bearing in mind that the mere fact 
of pouring metal in a chilling-mold does not necessa- 
rily give a chilled casting. Otherwise you could chill 
lead, or anything you wanted, as hard as car- wheel 
treads or lathe- tools. 

Casting Flange Pipe, with the ends faced true and 
the bolt-holes cored, was done some time ago at 
the Straight Line Engine Co's. Works. The ends 
were cast against a chill. The pattern differed from 
the ordinary pipe-pattern in having movable flanges 
to suit different lengths, and in having core-prints 
the full size of the flanges instead of the size of the 
bore. The flask was of the ordinary iron sort, having 
ends adjustable at intervals of a couple of inches, and 
with openings in the ends equal to the size of the 
core-prints. The core-bar was an inch or two 
smaller than the pipe-bore, having circular flanges or 
collars one and one-half or two inches apart, and four 
ribs throughout its length. These ribs were turned 



202 SHOP KINKS AND 

true and to a given size, and on the bar were fitted 
two chills set in any position to suit the length of 
pipe desired. The faces were recessed to form a fac- 
ing for the packing on the finished pipe, and as 
many holes as there were to be bolt-holes in the 
flange were bored clear through the chill, accurately 
spaced and reamed slightly tapering. The outsides 
of the chills were turned to the same size as the prints 
on the pattern, except that there was left on the out- 
side a small projection about one-eighth inch high. 
The chills, when on the bar, formed journals so that 
when rested in proper bearings the core-bar might be 
rotated. Common molding- sand was used for the 
core, and when swept up it was trued. When the 
flask was rammed up and the pattern removed, both 
ends were open to the full size of the flange. When 
the core was set the chills closed up the ends except 
the holes for the bolt-cores ; and the projecting V 
ribs pressed into the sand and made a stop to keep 
the iron from running out. Cores of the size of the 
bolt-holes and three or four inches long were passed 
through the chills until they struck the green sand, 
so that when the pipes were cast the bolt-holes were 
more nearly perfect than the ordinary drilled holes. 
The bolt-hole cores were made in blocks like the 
cylinder of a revolver, in which the cores were made 
and baked. 

Painting Iron Stacks. It is a problem which comes 
to almost every shop-owner some time or other, how to 
paint an iron stack — particularly if it is a light one 
and not very well guyed. The difficulty is sometimes 
increased by the stack being hot at the time of paint- 
ing ; but that is more a matter of detail with the paint 
and brushes if the mechanical details are right. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



203 



Planting ladders against the stack itself is usually 
out of the question ; the rope-ladder business is not 
always effective even if there are hand-holes to enable 
one to get to the top ; and scaffolding costs too much 
to be considered for a minute. 

The rig here rudely outlined consists of a ladder a 
little longer than the stack is high, a stout rope about 
three times as long as the ladder ; two stakes to keep 
the ladder from slipping at the foot, a stout board for 
the painter to stand on (or an old arm-chair without 




Fig. 145. — Rig for Painting Iron Stacks. 



any legs will answer if it is well wired together) and 
a rope by which to suspend the plank or chair. It is 
desirable to have two f| -shaped bails by which to 
hang the plank, one at each end. 

The ladder is planted so that its top will come 
about two feet from the stack, when the strain is on 
it by reason of the weight ; the guy-rope controlling 
that. The hight of suspension of the plank or chair 
is regulated by the painter himself, the rope playing 



204 SHOP KINKS AND 

freely on the top rung of the ladder ; or there may be 
a pulley-block at each end if desired. 

At each planting of the ladder, about one-quarter 
to one-third of the stack may be reached by the paint- 
er ; after that the ladder must be shifted. 

As regards the paint used — there are several com- 
positions sold for that purpose ; and some use coarse 
black-lead, just such as is used for stove-polish, mixed 
up with turpentine and oil ; or paint first with tar 
and then rub in black-lead. 

How To Paint Iron Work. That man who is paint- 
ing those bridge-sections should have his brush full 
of paint slapped across his face as a reminder. He is 
doing work that will fail and be to your discredit. 
He has not taken off the scale and rust, as he should 
have done, with a stiff wire scratch-brush. As the 
paint is only to preserve the work in shipment it 
would be better not to use paint at all, but to swab the 
pieces with linseed oil and then work it in well with 
a stiff brush. The little pieces might be soaked in 
boiled oil. 

Anti-Rust Compound for Bright Work. So you are 
going to close the establishment for awhile until these 
labor troubles are over? Well, no one knows how 
long that will be. You might as well make provision 
for not having the engines and machinery rust. Smear 
the bright places with a mixture of one ounce of gum- 
camphor, melted in a pound of lard, with a little black- 
lead. 

Hardness vs. Toughness. There is one thing that 
machinists and other mechanics should learn, and 
which not one in tweuty ever has learned ; that there 
is a difference between hardness and toughness, and 
that while a cutting- tool may not be tough enough, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 205 

or may be properly designed and made, it cannot be 
too hard ; and, in fact, no tool was ever yet made that 
was really hard enough. The fact that a tool crumbles 
or breaks is no indication that it is too hard ; but is 
merely an indication that it is too brittle, or that for 
a given degree of brittleness it has been given the 
wrong lines, or presented at a wrong angle to the work, 
or that the work has been given the wrong speed. 
Or, what is less often considered, the material may 
have been so worked that its grain runs in the wrong 
direction ; and any flaw which if axial would do no 
injury or would be expected and provided for, might 
be presented at an angle to the length of the tool, and 
thus permit it to be damaged. But taking all things 
into consideration, designing the tool properly in the 
first place, then making it from steel that has not been 
worked askew, and next using it properly in the ma- 
chine or elsewhere, there is no extra degree of hard- 
ness that will not be desirable and profitable. 

Warping of Long Tools. There is much trouble 
with the warping or the twisting of long tools, such 
as taps and reamers, in hardening and tempering. If 
you can so manage it as to retain a soft center there 
will be, or need be, but little difficulty in overcoming 
the warp. This is at least true of the large ones, 
which have a larger proportion of soft core than those 
of smaller cross-section. With these last, as indeed 
in all, it is well to be sure that you lower the tool 
perfectly squarely into the quenching-bath, so that the 
heat will be absorbed equally from all sides ; and this 
tendency will be increased if you will try to lower the 
tool as far as you can in the center of the bath. 

If this is true of the hardening-bath, it is equally so 
of the heating-bath, where melted lead or other liquid 



206 SHOP KINKS AND 

is used for heating. There will be no use in taking 
the trouble to cool a tool equally, if it has been heated 
unequally. For this reason, tools should be immersed 
squarely and centrally into the heating-bath, and 
turned around ; and the turning process will also be 
found desirable in quenching. 

Tempering Steel by Gas. Those who use a gas- 
burner for tempering steel should remember that there 
are parts of the flame which are about ten times as 
hot as others ; and it would be well to note where these 
parts are for each particular burner, in order to save 
time in making mis-heats. A piece of an arc-light 
carbon serves excellently well as an indication, noting 
the time required to heat it to a given color and in 
various parts of the name, with the gas-cock open a 
given distance ; or, what is better yet, as the pressure 
in the pipe varies according to the time of the day 
and the demand for gas, with the flame always at a 
given hight, which will assure a practically- constant 
gas-consumption. 

Where a piece is of several diameters or thicknesses 
in various portions, and an even hardness is desired 
all over, it will be well, where possible, to put the 
largest parts in those portions of the flame which 
your experience has shown to be the hottest ; and 
the same knowledge may be made use of where the 
temper is desired to be harder in some parts than in 
others. 

To hold small articles, as drills, which are to be 
hardened in a gas flame, it is well to make yourself 
some self-closing pincers of wire, giving the wire one 
or more turns at what will be the pivot or center of 
opening, and flattening it out on both parallel ends, 
with the flat of one end at right angles to that on the' 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 207 

other ; then filing a few nicks in that one of the 
flattened ends which meets the other edgewise, you 
will be able to hold with firmness any small cylindri- 
cal article which will enter the nick. 

Blazing off Springs. Cottonseed oil will be found 
a desirable medium for blazing off springs. For 
some work a mixture of this and fish oil is preferable 
to either of the two oils alone. Experience alone 
with each class of work will determine just which oil 
or what proportion of a mixture of the two to use. 

Hardening Tool=Steel. If you buy tool-steel from a 
reputable maker, and receive with it instructions or 
advice to harden it at a low red or any other tempera- 
ture or condition, take the advice. That manufac- 
turer is interested in making his particular steel do 
good service, so that he shall get your continued 
orders. There are reasons which you cannot explain, 
and which, perhaps, the makers of the steel cannot ex- 
plain, either why two steels for the same purpose 
require to be hardened at different temperatures and 
colors ; you had better accept the fact and make the 
most money you can out of it. In the same way if 
you buy emery-wheels of a certain brand, and are 
recommended to use soft free- cutting wheels for one 
job and hard wheels for another, take the maker's 
advice. Each maker wants to get his wheels to re- 
move as many ounces of metal for you, with a given 
expenditure of time and power, as is possible ; and 
most of the large establishments have made experi- 
ments which enable them to tell what their wheels 
will do and what they will not do. You should also 
take the advice of emery-wheel makers about the 
speeds at which to run their wheels. I do not carry 
this into the domain of saws, because often the 



2o8 SHOP KINKS AND 

makers of saws are too confident or too timid. They 
have not the facilities for knowing what speeds of ro- 
tation and feed will do the best service ; no saws are 
made in the lumber regions, and few even near them. 
But when it comes to emery-wheels, nearly all of them 
are made right within the reach of machine-shops 
which use them, and they are in position to hear com- 
plaints very quickly and to investigate their causes 
and apply or suggest the remedies. 

Hardening Cutters. Cutter-bits to be used in tool- 
holders in lathes should be regularly hardened when 
they get soft at their lower end. It is an easy mat- 
ter to lay them one side when they get a bit soft ; 
then when enough of them are ready to be hardened 
they can be put into a small oven and heated a dull 
red ; the end of each then plunged into a perforated 
iron box, the bottom of which is covered with just the 
required depth of water to harden them as far up as 
it is desired that they should be. Next they go to the 
grindstone to be ground and given out with the new 
cutters. Steel of high quality for such cutters 
should be kept out of the smith's fire. 

Hardening Small Saws, such as are used for slot- 
ting screw-heads, should not be difficult, and is best 
effected by pressing them between two thick well-oiled 
cold slabs, as of cast-iron. 

Deforming Dies in Hardening. In hardening, steel 
drop- dies usually turn out bulging in the center by 
reason of the strain which unequal cooling produces 
in them. 

There are two ways of getting around this — one to 
grind out the bulge, and the other to make allowance 
for it beforehand, by leaving in the face a sink about 
equal to the extent of the expected bulge. This latter 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 209 

way is for some reasons not so good as the first— 
partly because it requires that one make two or more 
sets of dies of the same size before learning the amount 
of bulge to provide for. But the grinding has the dis- 
advantage that it removes the skin of the die, which 
is the best part, and leaves it with its surface of un- 
equal hardness — usually softer where it has been 
ground away than elsewhere, and if it has been 
ground all over, but more in the center than at the 
edges, it will be of varying hardness all the way 
across. This difference in the hardness may be in- 
creased by too rapid grinding or too hard a wheel, 
drawing the temperature of the die by the heat of the 
wheel. 

The only advantage of the bulging-in dies is the 
less liability of their being broken if carelessly allowed 
to come together with nothing between them. 

Straightening Warped Pieces. Too much hammer- 
ing will make a saw-blade lose its elasticity ; but it 
may be made elastic again without re-hardening by 
re- heating to a spring temper. This principle may be 
employed for other kinds of articles. 

Hardening Around a Hole. Ring gages and such 
like should be hard around the hole and soft elsewhere. 
This may be done by clamping them between flanges 
on the ends of tubes through which cold water or brine 
is circulated ; the water hardens the walls of the hole 
out as far as the inside edges of the flanges. 

Over=Hard Tap=Blanks. Where a tap-blank that 
has been supposed to be annealed enough for thread- 
cutting proves too hard, from improper annealing or 
from not knowing the nature of the steel or of the 
heat, it is usually better in every way to anneal it 
over again, than to go on and wear out tools and 



2io SHOP KINKS AND 

lose temper, cutting the thread on the too hard 
material. It will often be best to turn it up rough, 
and to clean out the centers, before the second 
annealing. 

Tern pe rat ure=Gage for Steel. In order to show just 
how hot steel is that is being annealed in a muffle or 
box, supply some one-fourth inch rods, which maybe 
pulled out from time to time to test the temperature. 

To Blue Steel without heating, apply nitric acid ; 
then wipe off the acid, clean, oil and burnish. 

Working=Lines on Steel Pieces. Instead of blueing 
those steel pieces by heat in order to permit the lines 
marked on them to be plainly seen, it would be much 
better if you would copper the surface by rubbing it 
with a saturated solution of sulphate of copper (blue 
vitriol ; blue-stone) which will coat the surface with 
a very thin film of pure copper. If the surface is 
greasy or unfinished, a few drops of sulphuric acid to 
the ounce of solution will make it work all right. 

Malleable Castings. The reason why you are not 
able to make good malleable-iron castings is that you 
are too new in the business. It would be cheaper for 
you to get your castings of that sort made by those 
who have been in the business a good while and have 
a good reputation in that line. Their experience has 
been paid for long ago ; you will not have to pay for 
it when you order castings from them. In the early 
days of such work, when the malleable-iron foundries 
lost about one out of every three pieces that they 
made, the purchaser paid for the spoiled ones, 
whether he thought that he did or not ; and probably 
he paid for some that were not yet spoiled but which 
might be at the next run, or at some other run in the 
future. But you are now paying for the spoiled ones 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 211 

that you make. If, however, you will insist on keep- 
ing on trying until you get matters right, you should 
use pig that is very free from both phosphorus and 
sulphur ; should melt it in crucibles of from fifty to 
one-hundred pounds capacity, away from the air; 
and should pour it when it is hot enough for a drop 
of it, taken out on an iron bar, to burn when exposed 
to the oxygen of the external air. As to the cement- 
ation, there is not much mystery about it, it is more a 
question of judgment as to how long to keep the 
pieces in the oxide of iron ; the proper temperature, 
etc. To find out how long and how hot, you will 
have to pay for the experience. 

Annealing Steel in Open Fire. While annealing of 
steel is best done, perhaps, by the regular charcoal 
packing, there are cases (as in break-down jobs) 
where this cannot be resorted to ; and then the ma- 
chinist will be surprised if he tries it, how well he 
can do by simply heating in an open charcoal fire to 
a dull red, letting cool down naturally so that the red 
will not show even in the dark, and then quenching 
in cold water. 

To Soften White or Silver Iron so that it may be 
drilled or chipped, put it into a steel-furnace or other 
converting- furnace together with a suitable quantity 
of ironstone, iron-ore, some of the metallic oxides, lime 
or any other combination of these substances reduced 
to powder, or any other substances capable of com- 
bining with or absorbing the carbon of the crude iron. 
The more or the longer the heat is applied, the more 
nearly malleable the iron will become. 

Draftsman's Templates. Mr. Ware, head of the die 
department of the Ferracute Works, has many kinks 
which facilitate the rapid production of sketches in his 



212 SHOP KINKS AXD 

department. Among them is a cardboard template 
representing a flat-headed bolt, full size, the notches 
for the threads being sharply cut so that they may be 
followed (first the lines from right to left and then 
those from left to right) by a pencil point. He has 
several of these, of several sizes, representing several 
sizes of bolts to full scale ; and they come in very 
handy in sketching. 

Handy for Draftsmen. Some of the handiest little 
wrinkles are least used by draftsmen. I mention 
two that I came across the other day, both of them 
convenient and neither of them generally known. 

The first is an arrangement for rubbing out a single 
line or portion of a line without interfering with any 
other. It consists simply of a slit one-sixteenth inch 
wide, cut in a piece of hard cardboard, thus : — 




Fig. 146. — Erasing Card. 

This is used in connection with an india rubber or 
ink-eraser. The edges of the slit protect the adjacent 
lines. 

The other is the use of an ordinary ( ' medicine- 
dropper n (such as is used for filling stylographic pens) 
for loading drawing-pens. The device is very simple 
— simply a glass tube with a fine dropping-point , and 
a rubber bulb. It keeps the ink from drying, does 
not clog up, may be carried in the pocket if the point 
is tipped with a rubber cork, and saves time and ink. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



213 



Gear=Tooth Scriber. The late Mr. A. B. Couch, of 
the Industrial Works, Philadelphia, brought to my 
notice (in one of many visits in each of which I was 
indebted to him for some new and good idea) a scri- 
ber by which to outline epicycloid teeth for drawings 
or for templates. As shown in Figure 147 a portion 
of a wheel-pattern representing the generating-circle 




I p 
rvl 



Fig. 147.— Gear-Tooth Scriber. 

has a scribing-piece P, dovetailed with its marking- 
point exactly in the circumference, which is draw- 
filed to prevent slipping. This same wheel will 
draw racks, internal gears or external gears, accord- 
ing as it is rolled on a straight-edge, the external cir- 
cumference of a solid circle, or the internal circum- 
ference of a circular ring. 

Gripping T Square. In the Ferracute Works' draw- 
ing-room they employ T squares, having a spring 
clamping- edge, which grips a raised strip of rectangu- 
lar cross-section on the left-hand edge of the drawing- 
board and enables the draftsman to use both hands 
for his triangle and pen. 



214 SHOP KINKS AND 

Trammels may be made better with round tubing 
instead of a rectangular rod, for a beam, and the 
heads may have compression-rings set up by taper 
screws, so that there will be no need of set-screws. 
In fact, if the work is good enough, there need be lit- 
tle or no necessity of any clamping-device to keep the 
heads in their relatively proper position. No one ever 
thinks of requiring a clamp or other fastening-device 
on a pair of six-inch dividers or compasses; why 
should trammels need one ? 

The " Hyperbolograph." Well, after you have got 
it up, of what earthly use will it be to you or to any 
one ? How many people in this world do you think 
are lying awake at nights worrying about where they 
can buy a machine which will draw a hyperbola with 
mathematical exactness ? How many did you ever 
have to draw ? How many do you expect to draw ? 
And don't you know that you can lay one out with a 
pair of dividers and a parallel ruler in less time than 
you could rig up your ' ' hyperbolograph " to do the 
same work? Cui bono is a good thing to remember 
in mechanics. 

For Section=Lining Small Drawings, Mr. J. W. 
Payler, of Detroit, uses a small scrap from a slotting 




T 

Fig. 148. — Weight for Holding Drawings. 

job, as shown in Figure 148, frosted, and then sup- 
plied with four very slightly raised points made by a 
sharp chisel so that the block shall hold the paper, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 215 

but not go through it. This being set to the angle 
required, he places against it a taper scale made from 
a six- inch section of a broken two-foot rule ; some- 
times rising at each one-sixteenth inch advance 
against the corners of the weight, one one-hundredth 
of an inch, or according to need. 

Handy Triangles. The Ferracute people use in 
their drawing-room large triangles having cut in 
them some outlines which they have to reproduce 
often in their rough sketches — -as for instance, the 
heads of "hex " bolts, the conventional representa- 
tion of screw-threads, etc. 

Holding Large Drawings on the Board. Since go- 
ing through the Pennsylvania Railway shops at Al- 
toona, a number of years ago, I have given up the old 
barbarism of holding large drawings on the board by 
glue or by drafting- tacks, and have used small copper 
tacks (about the ' ' one-ounce ' ' size) as being cheaper 
and more convenient to insert and take out, and as 
offering no obstruction to the passage of the T 
square and the triangle ; besides which they have not 
the habit, as some have, of coming up into one's 
thumb (whence the name of ' i thumb-tacks ' ' I sup- 
pose) on being pressed into a hard board. 

But in the Brown & Sharpe drawing-rooms, where 
I knew that they had also been using for some time 
the ordinary copper tacks, I saw something which 
they say is better yet, and which for many things is 
supplanting the copper tack. They use small 
slips of gummed paper about three- fourths of an inch 
or an inch long and one- fourth of an inch wide, (prob- 
ably suggested by the short strips on the edge of a 
sheet of postage-stamps, when one is lucky enough to 
get stamps with some " stick 'em " on them) and 



216 SHOP KINKS AND 

these maKe as firm a connection as is desired between 
the edge of the drawing or tracing and the board. 

I think that it was in 1866 that I first learned to 
revile the memory of the inventor of the system of 
* ' donble elephant ' ' size of l ' egg-shell ' ' paper (usual- 
ly mounted on muslin) glued tight to the board. 
When a drawing was put under way there was always 
a margin of about one and one-half inches around al- 
lowed for the gluing, and then about another inch or 
inch and a-half inside that, there came a marginal 
line which it was the correct thing to make double, 
with corner pieces of greater or less complication. 
The outer inch and a-half of width we used for try- 
ing our drawing-pens, etc.; this part having the ad- 
vantage that it was exactly the same quality as the 
surface on which we were to work. Thank Heaven 
those days have passed away, and with them the 
three-fourths-inch German silver "thumb-tack." 

Sketching=Pads. You will find that the work of 
getting up ordinary sketches of machines and other 
work will be very much facilitated by having pads of 
paper faint-ruled in inch squares, sub-divided into one- 
eighth or one-tenth-inch squares. In repair- work 
many a job can be indicated better in this way than 
by a finished drawing ; and in altering machines also, 
where the full lines of the original drawing would be 
useless as indicating processes and measurements that 
are through with, the mere sketch outlines, upon paper 
ruled to one-eighth-inch or one-tenth-inch squares 
would appeal at once to the eye of the workman, and 
not confuse him with a mass of detail upon which some 
other workman had been engaged years ago, and upon 
which no other workman will ever be engaged again 
while it exists. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 217 

Drawings for the Shop. In a recent example of shop- 
drawings, published as a guide for mechanics and 
draftsmen, are some very glaring faults in minor 
matters. 

In the first place the dimension-numbers are so badly 
made that many of them are nearly indistinguishable. 
It is true that the original had been reduced from "14 
x 18 M to about 4 \ by something or other ; but it must 
be remembered that to the sight of many workmen who 
have not on their glasses they are blurred, and to many 
near-sighted persons who have on concave glasses, they 
appear as small as they seem on the printed page 
mentioned, to persons with normal vision. Some of 
the fives look like o's, some of the nines ditto; there 
is a \\\ in the upper left-hand corner which might be 
i|i with a very little imagination or very trifling vis- 
ual defect ; ( and perhaps it really is 1 \\ and looks like 
1 -BO Introducing hyphens or short dashes between 
words, and drawing lines under them, makes them 
much less legible than if they were not separated and 
underscored; and the lines of capitals are not so distinct 
as ' ' upper and lower case ' ' would be. The example 
shows mongrel lettering and numbering, although the 
text calls for k k full-face Gothic. ' ' I think that drafts- 
men, pattern-makers and machinists prefer " dot and 
dash" center lines to the full ones given in the sample 
drawing. Full lines for outlines of visible parts and for 
most hatchings, dotted lines for parts back of those 
which are seen, dot and dash lines for centers, and 
broken lines for long dimension-lines, seem to have 
been accepted by most draftsmen, and to be under- 
stood by most machinists, blacksmiths and pattern- 
makers the world over ; and as the growing use of the 
blue-print for shop use precludes very largely the 



218 SHOP KINKS AND 

employment of color, solid red for center-lines and 
various tints to represent various materials seem obso- 
lete practice. The Pennsylvania railroad and many 
other establishments have standard hatchings to rep- 
resent certain materials ; it is to be regretted that there 
is no uniformity in usage in this. 

I show a series herewith in Figure 149. 

Machine-shop drawings should be stiff and flat and 
never rolled. The best way to prevent this latter is 
to paste them on heavy tar-board or upon thin pine 
or poplar boards, and varnish them with white shellac 
varnish. It is well to varnish before the figuring 
and lettering are put on, so that if it be necessary to 
change the lettering the last coats of varnish can be 
sand-papered off and the lettering changed, without 
the lines of the drawing having to be touched. 

Showing all Sides of an Object. About the most 
difficult inventors to understand are those who insist 
on showing all four sides of their inventions on one 
single drawing. Three sides are bad enough, yet I 
found a concern in Philadelphia that wanted to show 
the front and both sides of a large office-building in 
one view. But I came across a Western firm that 
shows both the front and the back of its machines 
by one photograph. It is done by placing a mirror 
back of the machine and having the camera at 
such a hight as to show the rear view directly over 
the front one. It is a good trick for certain classes 
of machinery. 

Keeping Track of Drawings. In every establish- 
ment where there is a considerable number of draw- 
ings, especially in detail, and more especially where 
some of the sheets may be used on more than one 
size or kind of machine or character of construction, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



219 







CAST IRON MALLEABLE IRON STEEL, 

IN GENERAL USE 



CAST STEEL 




WROUGHT IRON 



BRASS 



BRONZE 



COPPER 



BABBITT 



LEATHER 



HEMP 






RUBBER 



SHADE LINE 



DOTTED LINE 



ST ON 








BRICK 



MAGINARY LINE- 



CENTRE LINE 



DIMENSION LINE 



EARTH 

Fig, 149 — Standard Hatchings. 



220 SHOP KINKS AND 

it is absolutely necessary to have some method by 
which any given drawing may be kept in but one 
place and found in that place when needed, or else 
traced to where it is in use ; also that if a drawing is 
lent or sent away, record can be kept of its destination 
and of whoever is responsible for its return. 

In the drawing-roorn of the Brown & Sharpe Man- 
ufacturing Co., at Providence, among other wrinkles 
is a system of card- cataloguing, similar to that in 
modern libraries. Every drawing, tracing or blue- 
print is entered on a card four and seven-eighths by 
two inches, with a seven-sixteenths-inch circular hole 
in the center of length, centered three-eighths of an 
inch from the bottom, hence leaving about three- 
thirty-seconds of an inch of card between it and the 
bottom edge. This is lettered as follows: — 

Time No., or Name and address. | DRAWING INDEX— Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co. Prov., R. I. 

Title. 



Marked Indexed under head of 

Remarks, 

There are three colors of cards — pink, white and 
light blue. If I remember rightly, all ordinary draw- 
ings are indexed on white cards, tracings on pink ones, 
and blue-prints on blue ones. These are strung in 
alphabetical order on rods which prevent their being 
withdrawn from the drawers in which the cards are 
kept; and they are never taken from the drawers. Of 
course, as each new card comes in, it is put in its 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 221 

proper alphabetical place without disturbing the 
others, and thus the record is always exactly complete, 
alphabetical and up to date. 

In order to keep track of drawings that are taken 
from their cases or drawers, there are used cards like 
this: 



Time. 



5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9^10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I H_J_15j_16 | 17 
T8Ti9~n*H 21 I 22 l^ 3 I n I 25 | 2S | 27 | 23 | 29 | 30JJ51 | 32 [ 33 I 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 



D RATTING Xo. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 



39 I 40 


| 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 


47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 


56 | 57 | 


58 | 59 


Note Style 
of Drawing 


Ink 
Drawing 


Pencil 
Drawing 


Sketch 


Blue Print 


Date 
Delivered 


"White Paper 




Not Mounted | 




Buff " 


Mounted on i 
Cardboard 





V. ._:.:: i "- ~? . i 



D-:Livrred :■- Mr. 



Tracing ' 



RECORD OF DRAFTING SENT FROM DRATTTXG-ROOM 
Report if not returned within a reasonable time, or if soiled or mutilated in anv way 

Each drawing as taken away from the drawing- 
room to go to pattern-shop, machine-shop, customer, 
or wherever it may be, is properly entered on one of 
these, which is kept as a silent witness against who- 
ever has the drawing, until it is returned, when the 
card may be (and I suppose is) destroyed. 

It is strange that so many shops which have a 
system of checks to prevent a workman forgetting to 
return a fifteen-cent drill-bit, should entrust a draw- 
ing worth seventy-five dollars to anyone who comes 
along, and without keeping any record of its deliver} 7 
or return. 

Curves of Long Radius. It often happens that 
there is a necessity- for drawing curves of great radius 



222 SHOP KINKS AND 

or of making drawings having a vanishing-point 
which would be somewhere in the next county ; and 
it is in the arrangement of devices by which this can 
be done without taking Up excessive room, that the 
good draftsman shows himself. 

Drawing large circular curves may be done on the 
" three-point " system, that is by taking advantage of 
the fact that in every circle there is any number of 
sets of three points each, which will be equally distant 
from the center ; planting the three points, placing 
pins in ""he two outer ones, and swinging about them 
a triangular piece bearing a pencil-point in its apex, 
which should be at the place of the third point. 

When it comes to drawing with the vanishing- 
point at a great distance, that can be done, not by 
having an excessively long T-square blade, but by 
cutting a wooden template to a circular curve of the 
desired radius, putting two or three corks on the edge 
of the T-square head, so as to represent three points 
in a similar curve, and sliding it around so as to pre- 
sent it at the desired angles to have all the lines con- 
verge to the desired vanishing-point. 

Curve=Joining. There is a great art in curve- 
joining in mechanical drawing. But while there is 
a great art, there is very little high science. There 
is required the knowledge and application of just one 
principle ; that two curves which are to touch and join 
each other properly must have a common tangent. 
Suppose that you have to draw an oval (not an ellip- 
tical) figure having a semi- circle as one portion of it, 
and three circular arcs for the rest ; these circular arcs 
to join the semi- circle and each other, smoothly and 
without a break. 

Draw a circle and across it a diameter. Use one of 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



223 



the two semi-circles which this gives you, for one part 
of the oval. Draw another diameter at right angles 
to the first one. Through that point where it cuts 
the circle, in the semi-circle which you are not going 
to use as a part of the oval, draw two lines across each 
other and of indifferent length. With each end of 




Fig. 150. — Curve Joining. 

the first diameter as a center, draw a circular arc start- 
ing at the semi-circle and reaching just to one of the 
cross -lines. With their crossing-point (which is on the 
semi-circle not used) as a center, and with a radius 
reaching to where the circular arcs meet the crossing 
lines, draw a circular arc which will complete the 
oval. The first pair of circular arcs that you drew 
will then be tangent to the semi-circle and to the last 
circular arc drawn ; and the oval will be smooth and 
symmetrical. 



224 SHOP KINKS AND 

Equal Concentric Rings. It sometimes happens that 
it is desired to divide a circle into concentric rings 
having equal areas. Of course this can be done by 
dividing the area of the circle by the number of divis- 




Fig. 151. — Equal Concentric Rings. 

ions that are required ; dividing the area of each part 
thus found by 0.7854, and taking the square root 01 
the quotient for the diameter of the inner circle ; tak- 
ing the square root of twice this for the diameter of the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 225 

next circle, the square root of three times the inner 
diameter, for the diameter of the third circle, and so 
on. But the same result can be attained much more 
rapidly and just as accurately by dividing the radius 
of the circle into as many parts as there are areas re- 
quired ; on the entire radius as a diameter drawing 
a semi-circle, and at the points of division erecting 
perpendiculars to the radius, meeting the semi-circle 
in certain points. With the center of the original 
circle as a center, and radii reaching to the points of 
intersection of the perpendiculars and the semi-circle, 
draw concentric circles. These will be found to divide 
the circle into rings having equal areas with each other 
and with the inmost circular portion. 

Erecting a Perpendicular With a Two=Foot Rule. To 
do this, open the rule and rest the ends against a 
straight edge or line, with one leg just at the point 
where the perpendicular is to be drawn. Then hold- 
ing the other leg firmly, open the rule straight out to 
its full length ; next join the corner which before 
touched the line, with the point where it touched it 
before, and you have a perpendicular to the straight 
line. 

Test this the first time with a square to be sure that 
you connect the two proper points, and after that there 
should be no need of testing. 

For riaking Sun=Prints from Tracings, with black 
lines on white ground, put the tracing and the sensi- 
tized paper (the Pontrichet " gallate of iron" process 
gives lines which blacken with age and exposure to 
sunlight) , put the tracing and the sensitized paper into 
the frame in the usual way for blue-printing, and ex- 
pose to sunlight so that the rays will Jail squarely on the 
glass. This is of course desirable for blue-printing 



a 2 6 SHOP KINKS AND 

also. To do this it is well to have the frame swung 
on horizontal trunnions and also mounted on a carriage 
with rollers so that it may be pointed to any quarter 
of the heavens and inclined at any angle to the hori- 
zon) . The yellow surface of the paper will turn white. 
When that part under the tracing has become nearly 
as white as the margin, remove the print and immerse 
it in the developing-bath, composed of one-quarter 
ounce of developing-powder to each gallon of water, 
in an acid-proof tank or tray. The lines will turn 
black and the ground will clear up. When the former 
are dark enough, wash the print in clear water, allow- 
ing it to remain therein fifteen to thirty minutes, when 
you may hang it up to dry. 

Under-exposure results in a more or less grayish 
background ; while over-exposure will not give dark 
enough lines (burned off). The developing-bath may 
be used until it becomes quite black and dirty. Any 
dirt from it may be removed from the paper easily by 
a soft brush. Do not mix too much developing-solu- 
tion ; have the bath just deep enough to enable you to 
rinse the print therein, and renew it oftener. 

Use very black and opaque ink for all tracings that 
are to be used for either blue or black-printing. The 
thicker the ink the better the prints from the tracings 
will be. If the ink is not opaque enough, add a little 
chrome yellow or burnt Sienna water- color. 

Blue=Prints of Solid Objects. About the best way 
to get a working drawing of a complicated piece 
where the outline is very irregular or the exact 
shape of the curve is an important factor, is to make 
a blue-print from the original sample itself. The 
watch-makers and makers of watch- making machinery 
do this with great success and satisfaction. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 227 

Simplicity in Design. As an example of a compli- 
cated way of doing a thing when there is a simple 
one, commend me to this, sent on by an inventor who 
wants me to finish np the details of his suggestion. 
The idea is to enable a certain portion of a surface to 
receive less pressure than the rest, and the way it was 
to be accomplished, according to our ingenious inven- 
tor, is as follows : " Make a substantial box, a little 
larger than the surface which is to receive less pres- 
sure, with a hole near each corner, but less than the 
hight of the rest of the surface. Threads should be 
cut in these holes. Around these holes place rubber 
rings to act as springs. Next comes the block with 
corresponding holes, a little larger and countersunk. 
Fasten the block in the box with screw bolts, threads 
only a short distance up, and slipping freely through 
the block, but the heads keeping the block from ris- 
ing higher, while the rubber permits its being pressed 
a little lower. Last comes the top surface-piece, the 
whole when completed being exactly as high as the 
surrounding surface. The pressure on the now elastic 
surrounded surface will be necessarily less than on the 
surrounding area. Many modifications can be made, 
but the above gives the idea. The extra expense 
when the method is once understood is comparatively 
small and would be resorted to only when special re- 
sults are to be obtained, and then the expense is little 
considered or ought not to be." 

To this there should be but one reply : ( ' What is 
the matter with mounting the inner part on a slab of 
soft rubber?" 

As to extra expense being of no matter, it always 
is of consequence ; and even if it cost no more to do 
a thing in a complicated way than in the simple one, 



228 SHOP KINKS AND 

no inventor should ever let himself get into the habit 
of making a thing with ten pieces when two would 
suffice equally well. It is like a mechanic allowing 
himself to do bad work just because it is cheap. If 
he does poor work and makes bad fits on a cheap job 
his style will be spoiled, his value lessened. Go into 
such a shop as Pratt & Whitney's or Brown & 
Sharpens, and ask them to do a rough job ; you will be 
very politely told that their men don't know how to 
do it, and that they would not permit them to learn. 

When you get right down to it, very often the 
simple methods are better than the complicated ones. 
Thus in taking up the lost motion of a pair of brasses, 
there are very few cases where it is not about as well 
to have liners of thin sheet iron or even of brown 
paper, instead of a wedge, with its attendant compli- 
cation of adjusting-screws or set-screws. If an ad- 
justing-screw has a pitch of sixteen to the inch, the 
range of adjustment will be, in practice, about one- 
five-hundredths of an inch; and that fine an ad- 
justment may be got by adding or removing a thin 
piece of paper, or by substituting paper or metal of 
one thickness for that of another. 

Simplicity in Engine Design may be carried to an 
extreme. For instance, it is more simple to have the 
guides in one piece with the engine- frame ; that is, 
simply straight portions of the latter, planed off true. 
But when it comes to planing them for a second time 
(and with short crosshead-slides that are apt to be need- 
ed soon) the simplicity is a disadvantage, if instead of 
being able to take off the guide-strips and have them 
planed true and smooth , you must rely on some special 
device for planing them off in position ; and perhaps 
that device is not to be had in your town, or you may 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 229 

have to pay too much for its use. The best way 
would be to have the frame itself planed true to 
receive parallel guide-strips which are reversible, as 
the crab-claw catch-blocks of some Corliss engines are. 

" All In One Piece. " While multiplicity of pieces 
is often a great disadvantage, yet there are times and 
places where it is much better to have some parts sep- 
arate from others — especially where there are portions 
that are liable to be rendered inoperative by ordinary 
wear. 

One of the best examples of this which I ever saw 
was in the case of the first pulsometers that were 
made, in which one of the special talking-points was 
that they were cast all in one piece ; "no complica- 
tion of parts ; no costly machine- work, n etc. Well, 
I had a mine to pump out in a hurry ; the regu- 
lar pumps were at the bottom of the shaft, covered 
four feet deep with water, and the pulsometer seemed 
just the way out of the trouble. It was lowered down, 
and did the work nobly, taking black gritty water 
charged with sulphuric acid just as though it had 
been made for that and nothing else. It was such a 
good thing that neighboring mines ordered some 
to be ready for similar emergencies. But a change 
came over the spirit of their dreams as to the value of 
such an apparatus for permanent and frequent use. 
u One cast shell and three ordinary cast-iron balls " 
sounded very well, and gave signs of an entire ab- 
sence of repair-bills. But the time came when the 
valves and their seats wore so that the valves leaked ; 
and then the entire apparatus was thrown out of ser- 
vice, because there was no way to renew the valve- 
seat by grinding, turning, boring or any other opera- 
tion. This was remedied in later designs. 



230 SHOP KINKS AND 

Ingenuity vs. Common Sense. Simple means are 
generally the best. Here yon have gone and made a 
very expensive air-cnshion to receive the shock of 
that reciprocating bed. You have bored out a cylin- 
der at great expense, and turned out a piston with 
great expense also ; but that is not enough, you must 
go and provide for varying the cushion, by having 
the bottom of the cylinder screw in and out. It 
probably cost you fifteen dollars to make that adjust- 
able bottom to your cylinder. A fifteen-cent pet- 
cock would do the same thing just as well — better, 
in fact. When you want more resistance, you close 
it ; when you want less, you open it. The adjust- 
able-bottom cylinder is ingenious, but the pet-cock 
is common-sense. 

The Importance of Centers. Lay out your centers ! 
Never mind what is between them, until you see 
where they are. Then connect them by straight 
lines and lay out the positions of those lines in vari- 
ous phases of the revolution or other movement of the 
machine. If the lines cross at any time there will 
be no use in going any further ; the centers will have 
to be shifted, or the plan given up. 

Designing " Wrong End To." Here you are trying 
to make the entire plan of your machine fit the pieces 
that you have made. Make the pieces fit the design 
of the machine. 

The Brace Principle. Brace it ! Brace it ! The 
triangle is the only framed form that cannot be 
pushed or pulled out of shape without breaking the 
joints or distorting the sides. The square can be 
worked about its joints as pivots, until it is flat and 
its sides inclose no area ; but the triangle allows no 
such liberties taken with it. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 231 

Templates of the Human Figure. Mr. Oberlin 
Smith, who has occasion to design many special 
forms of presses and other machinery, in using which 
the workman must be enabled to use both hands and 
his foot at the same time to control the treadles, stock, 
etc., has hit upon a convenient method of enabling 
himself to see whether or not the various levers, 
treadles, etc. are at the best proper hight to be con- 
trolled by the workman without changing his general 
position. He has printed templates representing 
the human figure in profile, one-half size, and on 
other scales. Applying to the drawing that template 
which is on the same scale as the drawing itself, he 
can readily see whether the treadle is in position to 
be easily reached by the foot, whether the stroke is 
too great or not, etc., and in similar manner with 
the handles, whose position and throw can thus be 
settled before the drawing is completed, and made 
right before the machine is put in iron. 

Graphical Proportion. Where it is desired to make 
a number of pieces in a set of various sizes, all of 
which have the same relation to each other in all the 
sizes, in keys, etc., it may be very well done by draw- 
ing by u graphical proportion" as the schools have 
it. For instance, suppose that there is a piece which 
has on it the dimensions indicated in figure by AB, 
AC, AD, AE, etc.; and it be required to have a 
smaller size with all the dimensions in the same pro- 
portion. Lay off AB, AC, etc., on a line, to which 
erect a perpendicular Ab, having the length of the 
piece on the smaller size which is to correspond with 
AB on the larger. Draw Bb\ then draw AC, AD, 
etc.; draw, parallel to Bb, the lines Cc, Dd, etc., 
cutting Ab at the points c, d, etc. Then if Ab is the 



232 



SHOP KINKS AND 



dimension on the smaller size, corresponding to AB 
on the larger, Ac, Ad, etc., will be the dimensions 
on the smaller one corresponding to AC, AD, etc. on 
the larger. Where there is a still smaller size, take 
on the dividers the dimensions on that third size 




B IHG FE D C A 

Fig. t 52.— Graphical Proportion. 

corresponding to AB on the original or largest size ; 
with A as the center describe an arc which shall cut 
Bb at some point, which point connect with point A, 
forming a straight line. Then the lines Cc, Dd, etc. 
will set off on that line the dimensions corresponding 
to AC, AD, etc. 

General Dimension Sheet. It often happens in re- 
designing machinery that has been changed from 
time to time, that there are conflicting dimensions on 
the various sheets ; and if special care is not exercised 
in this particular it may turn out that a member ap- 
pears to be longer inside than out ; or that a journal 
is larger than its bearing. In order to prevent this, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 233 

it is well to collect on one sheet or set of sheets all 
the dimensions, arranged as far as possible in their 
mechanical order, so that cross reference may be made 
with the greatest readiness, and inconsistencies or dis- 
crepancies brought out. 

One good form of such dimension sheet has rulings 
for lengths, widths, thicknesses or diameters, and 
weights ; and in some instances it will be found well 
to have a column for the number or letter of the piece, 
(referring to the drawings of patterns or finished parts 
themselves) and another for the number of each part 
that will be required. It may further be found con- 
venient to have both the rough and the finished sizes 
and weights. 

Breakages of Cast=Iron Columns. If pattern- 
makers, molders and founders understood their busi- 
ness better there would be fewer breakages of cast- 
iron columns. Many of them give out because they 
have too much metal in them. It is possible by add- 
ing a molding to a column which would be strong 
enough, to cause it to be weak at that point, the 
molding drawing metal away from the interior or 
shell proper of the column. Leaving off the molding 
entirely might have just the opposite effect if it was 
at a jog in the diameter, as in any sharp angle there 
is always such an arrangement of crystals as to 
weaken a casting at that point. If there is any place 
where a molding comes other than a fillet in a sharp 
angle, it is best that it be made in a separate part and 
bolted on; — that is, where the column has to bear 
weight and its failure might endanger life or 
property. 

Cast=Iron Beam=Sections. It seems strange that 
founders who know well enough that cast iron is 



234 SHOP KINKS AND 

much stronger in compression than in tension, and 
who should know that the top flange of a beam is in 
compression under load, and the bottom in tension, 
should make the two flanges equal in dimensions. 

A very much better way is that invented in the 
long ago by Hodgkinson and shown in Figure 153 ; 






Jk» 



Fig. 153.— Best Section for Cast-Iron Beams. 

the lower flange having about five times the cross- 
section of the lower. With this, there is obtained 
greater strength for a given weight, or less weight 
for a given desired strength, whichever may seem 
most desirable. " Verbum sap;" which is a way 
the old Romans had of expressing the fact that a 
word to the wise is sufficient. 

Cylindrical Nuts. Ordinary "hex" and square 
nuts are rather expensive to make and sometimes de- 
lay a job, they take so long to get up. After you have 
them, they take up a good deal more room than is 
sometimes convenient ; and they certainly use up 
stock at an appalling rate. For small work it is in 
many cases much better to use cylindrical nuts. For 
three-eighths-inch bolts, cylindrical nuts three-fourths 
inch in diameter will replace with advantage hexagon 
nuts that are over seven-eighths inch from corner to 
corner ; or square ones over an inch across corners. 
When of this size, they may be screwed up or taken 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 235 

off with a tool having jaws opening like pincers, bnt 
reamed to the nnt-diameter when they are very slightly 
open. The nuts themselves may be produced very 
cheaply and rapidly by taking a steel bar of proper 
diameter to finish to size after turning, feeding it 
through a turret-lathe head, squaring the end, drilling 
a hole in it, running in the tap, turning the surface 
and cutting off the nut — all by fixed tools in the turret- 
head, and the cross cutting-off tool. This dispenses 
with all planing, milling and seating on an arbor. 

In setting up such nuts there is a great advantage 
from the fact that the wrench may get a grip in mov- 
ing through the smallest arc of a circle — instead of as 
with a square nut, requiring a quarter turn for a new 
hold, or with the " hex " nut, sixty degrees. 

For large work cylindrical nuts may be cheaply pro- 
duced and supplied with six or more lengthwise 
grooves for a spanner. 

Adjustment=Nuts. In such places as on milling- 
machine spindles which have no back support, it is 
necessary to have adjustment-nuts to preserve the end 
position ; and this adjustment must not move of its own 
accord. One way is to have two nuts jamming each 
other, turnable only by a spanner working in holes. 
Another is to give the main nut a taper-threaded ex- 
tension, which is split in four lengths and has a taper 
pinch-nut to clamp it. Another way yet is to split a 
round nut and pinch it ; and this is very good when 
it is split and pinched at both ends, as it gives good 
and even bearing all along its length. It is better to 
have projecting ears for the pinching-screw, as this 
enables the use of a wrench, which would not be the 
case if the screw-head were countersunk. A collar 
with a set-screw is a good way also — and by the way 



236 



SHOP KINKS AND 



I say my say in another place about set-screws. Where 
the thread is not exactly true with the spindle, a nut 
will bear on only one side ; and to meet such cases the de- 
vice shown in Figures 154 and 155 answers admirably. 
It consists of a washer, having at two points diametri- 
cally opposite each other, projections A ; and 90 degrees 
from these on the other face, two others, B, B, A ) A, 
meet the face of the nut, and B, B that of the arbor. 





Figs. 154 and 155.— Adjustment Nuts. 

A nut sawed half way through at right angles to its 
axis may be pinched on the male thread by a small 
screw parallel to its axis ; or the same effect may be 
produced by partly closing the cut with a hammer. If 
it is sawed nearly in two lengthwise it may be simi- 
larly closed either by a pinch-screw or by a hammer- 
blow, or pressure in a vise. 

Improved Stud=Nut. In shops where steam-engines 
are built, there are a great many studs to put in ; and 
the method in general use is to use a square nut with 
a set- screw in its top, and a piece of soft metal between 
the set-screw and the studs to prevent bruising the lat- 
ter. These nuts soon become worn and loose on the 
studs; then the threads are so much bruised and 
strained that the nuts do not follow as they should. 
In the old Delamater Iron Works, Mr. H. S. Brown 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



237 



devised a stud-nut that gets over these difficulties very 
nicely. There is, as shown in Figure 156, a bushing 
with a hole tapped for the stud ; then on the outside 
top is a thread for an outside nut to screw on ; and as 




[ _2.1j__ } 




Fig. 156. — Improved Stud-Nut. 

it screws down on the taper bush the latter closes firm- 
ly on the stud, and prevents straining the thread. The 
bush is split as shown, to allow it to close on the stud. 
The cap on the top is to prevent the outside nut screw- 
ing off when removing the nut from the stud. 

Nut= Arbor. Another form of nut-arbor is that 
w w 



vW\\W\ 





VWvVvV 



Fig. 157. — Nut- Arbor. 
shown in Figure 157; the arbor M having a hemi- 



238 



SHOP KINKS AND 



spherical shoulder, to which there is fitted a cup wash- 
er W, that will run over and balance the nut whether 
it fits well or badly on the arbor- thread. 

Differential =Screw Lock-Nut. In some French shops 
where one piece must be very securely fastened to 
another, as where a piston-head is to be fastened to a 
rod, or a propeller-hub to a shaft, they employ a nut 
which is threaded both externally and internally ; the 
two threads being slightly different. There is a hexa- 
gonal part on the outside of one end of the nut, by 




Fig. 158. — Differential-Screw Lock-Nut on Piston-Rod. 

which it may be turned ; and the piston-head, pro- 
peller-hub, or whatever it is, is threaded to suit the 
outside of the nut. Turning the nut draws the rod 
or shaft in with a force equal to that due to the differ- 
ence of the two pitches, and yet the strength is that 
of the coarse thread. The nut goes on the rod or 
shaft a few turns before entering the head or hub. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 239 

This same principle may be applied to fastening 
together the two parts of a connecting-rod end of the 
marine type, or a bollard-head on a capstan. 

The Much=Neglected Fillet. Among other things 
that are not given so much credit and use as they 
should be, is the fillet, especially in right angles of 
jaws, housings, and similar pieces. A pattern-maker 
will get up a pattern for a piece which has two legs, 
or whatever they may be called, at right angles with 
each other, and one of which is subject to a stress 
which tends to open out the angle. If it is cast iron 
the crystallization in such internal angle is of a 
nature which will very readily permit a crack or a 
break. A fillet in such corner would do two things 
— put more metal where there is more stress and 
greater leverage, and do away with the crystallizing 
at right angles, which is the curse of all cast work. 
Of course, for wr ought-iron work there is no trouble 
about the crystallizing, but the same conditions exist 
about the opening-out strains ; they may be modified 
in the first place, and lessened in the second, by fil- 
leting ; and in about four cases out of five the fillet 
would not be in the way of anything at all. 

Cone=Center Pivots. The further you get away 
from an ordinary sixty-degree cone-center on your 
pivot, the further you are getting away from work 
that is both cheap and good. The sixty-degree 
angle is cheap and easy to make ; the tools to make 
it are cheap to make, and easy to keep in proper trim ; 
and the journal and bearing can be taken up properly 
without trouble. 

Covers on Brass Cups. In brass- work where it is 
necessary to screw a cover down snugly, as on an oil- 



240 SHOP KINKS AND 

cup, there are two ways of doing — one to undercut 
the female thread on the inside of the cap and the 
other to cut one or more male threads in the body; 
the former will be found the best. 

Taper Oscillating Valves. Those who have had 
trouble in making a taper oscillating valve so that it 
will run tight, have run across the trouble that the 
valve wears smaller and the seat wears larger, (which 
was to be expected) and even providing end take-up 
so as to bring the two surfaces together does not 
always act, because the large ends wear more than 
the small ones, and the valve and the seat seldom 
wear equally. The best way is to prevent wear 
rather than to provide means to take it up ; and this 
may be done by hanging the valve on trunnions hav- 
ing about the same amount of taper as it has ; or 
without taper at all, according to the materials used. 
Then the valve will not grind on its seat at all, and 
the trunnion-wear and that of its bearing can be 
taken up by the ordinary device of quarter-brasses, 
or by end-adjustment, or by other means which will 
suggest themselves to the designer, and the selection 
and application of which will depend on the circum- 
stances. 

A Good Crank=Pin for center-crank engines may be 
made by passing a parallel steel pin through a steel 
bush, placed as a distance piece between the crank- 
cheeks and held by a nut on each end. 

Holding Things in Place. The reason why you 
have so much trouble with those bars swerving out 
of their places is that you go about it the wrong way 
to hold them in place. They are each held by a 
single screw clamping them to their place; and that 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT 241 

screw has not a very large face to the under side of its 
head. The leverage is against the screw, and it lets 
go. One screw might do, if it had a very large flat 
surface to its head, so as to give it a better chance 
against the leverage ; but it would be better to have 
two screws as far apart as there is room for them. 

Equalizing Locomotive-Drivers. These " chats" 
will probably go into a good many locomotive-shops ; 
and to some of those in these shops I want to say that 
there is one thing that is not often taken note of — 
and that is the fact that with improper equalizing be- 
tween the drivers, one pair will wear tires faster than 
the other or others, and that this causes a loss of 
power and a fearful wrenching of pins. Of course, 
the pair that has the greater weight will wear the 
fastest. Then either that or the other pair will have 
to slip ; and slipping of this character destroys tires 
and is death on pins ; much worse than equal slip- 
ping on both pairs. So if you have an eight- wheel 
engine with 64,000 pounds to put on the entire wheel- 
set, and 48,000 of this on the two pairs of drivers, it 
should be considered of just as much account to have 
24,000 pounds on each axle as to have the same 
weight on one side as on the other. 

Solid vs. Spring Pistons. There is divided opinion 
as to the relative merits of solid and spring pistons. 
A solid piston is much safer than a spring piston — 
there is much less liability of pieces of spring getting 
in the ports or between the piston and the cylinder- 
head ; but pistons and cylinder-bores will wear, and 
it is absolutely necessary to have some way by which 
the piston may be increased in size to correspond with 
the bore. Ordinarily there is a spider about which 



242 SHOP KINKS AND 

the rings are sprung, and a follower-plate which 
butts against the spider or head proper. This gives 
the springs a chance to expand and follow out the 
bore, and if the latter is u hour-glassing, " they can 
expand and contract during each stroke. But where 
the cylinder-bore is parallel, it is a good plan to have 
the follower-plate arranged to grip the springs be- 
tween it and the spider, so that when the springs are 
set out to the desired diameter, they may be held 
there nntil by their own wear and that of the cylin- 
der-bore, they require to be set out by slacking up 
the follower. 

Cut vs. Wire Nails. Just about as the people of 
this country are coming to the conclusion that wire 
nails are better than cut ones, you start to make a cut- 
nail machine. Why don't you keep your eyes open ? 
If you keep on at this rate we will hear of your start- 
ing a stage-coach shop or a spinning-wheel factory. 
This world moves, young man; you must move 
with it ! 

To Keep Nuts from Working Loose. It often hap- 
pens that it is required to hold a hub on a shaft by a 
nut, which would work loose unless specially pre- 
vented. This is usually accomplished by a jam- nut 
or other separate device ; but the same thing may be 
done just as well by screwing the nut up against the end 
of the shaft (as shown in Figure 159) instead of against 
the hub (as shown in Figure 158). In Figure 158 
the hub projects beyond the small shoulder of the shaft; 
in Figure 159 the latter projects beyond the hub. In 
both cases the end of the shaft is threaded for the nut ; 
the only difference is that in the second way the re- 
duced non- threaded part of the shaft is longer than the 
depth of the bore, instead of shorter. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 



243 



Cost of Product. Did you ever try to cipher up just 
exactly how much any given thing that you had made, 
had cost? And after having done so, were you ever 
morally satisfied that you were right ; that you had 
not either cheated yourself or overcharged your cus- 
tomer? To a certain extent you may tell how much 
your raw material costs; the labor on that particular job 
is very much easier to cipher up ; but when it comes to 
the shop expense, where are you? That is the most 
variable factor in the whole business ; and cost figures 
got up on this basis are very apt to resemble the old 




Figs. 158 and 159. — To Keep Nuts from Working Loose. 

woman's recipe for cake, in which she gives the weight 
of everything except one item in ounces and fractions, 
and then says ' 'some' ' butter, or ' 'some' ' ginger. One 
writer says ' ' shop expense is usually determined an- 
nually by subtracting from the total expenses of the 
business the sum of the expenditures for raw material 
and labor, and dividing the balance by the annual labor 
cost ; the resulting ratio gives the average relation of 
labor and shop expense for that year, and is used as a 
basis for the next year's cost. " 

There used to be a story of a man who told the 
weight of a pig very accurately without scales, by bal- 



244 SHOP KINKS AND 

ancing the pig on a long pole, against a stone, and 
then gnessing the weight of the stone. 

On this basis, in a big shop the shop expense may 
be mnch greater than the labor-cost ; and in a small 
one very mnch less, as regards ratio ; where as a mat- 
ter of fact, assuming the raw material to cost the 
same, the big shop should be able to have a lower 
labor-cost for the job than the small one. Yet, as a 
matter of fact, the little shop can make money at a 
price that would seem to mean a loss to the big one 
on the same job. 

A better way is to regard each tool as a workman, 
paid so much a day ; this rate being made up of the 
cost of power that the tool gets, the interest on its 
first cost, the per cent, of its value that it deteriorates 
each year, its share of the interest or rent of the 
building wdiich protects it, and its share of the de- 
preciation of that building. Of course, during the 
time that the tool is not in use, the depreciation of 
the building will be going on just the same as though 
the tool was in use ; and to certain extent so will the 
depreciation of the tool itself; so the general ex- 
pense-ratio will be rather larger for the big shop than 
for the small one. 

Which ever way you look at it, it is a tangle ; but 
it is better to be able to come within twenty-five 
per cent, of the actual cost, than only within 
fifty per cent. 

" Cost and Ten Per Cent. '' Some years ago I had 
occasion to get some work done in a machine-shop, 
and it being an " experimental job" where parts 
had to be tried and altered, and thrown away or re- 
made if unsuitable, the bargain was that the charge 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 245 

was to be u cost and ten per cent. " When the bill 
came it created a scene. It was apparently for a 
large slice of the whole establishment, even though 
this was a large one occupying several blocks. It 
was about twenty per cent, highei than my own 
running "memos" made as the work progressed, and 
which I could generally rely on coming within from 
three to five per cent, one way or the other of the 
bills when they came. I demanded an itemized ac- 
count, and got it — and therewith some valuable ex- 
perience. For in the item of " cost " there appeared 
several margins of profit strictly manufacturing, 
together with items which seemed to me to be irrele- 
vent and " not my funeral. " 

For instance, when a bright apprentice at one and 
one-half cents an hour was used to do work which in 
other shops was often entrusted to a skilled hand, I 
got the charge for the skilled hand. The apprentice 
got the practice, the firm got the profit, I got the 
experience. However, I really got money's worth, 
although it was one of my prime reasons for going to 
that shop with my work, that I knew their appren- 
tices could run gear-cutters, etc., with their eyes shut 
(the apprentices' eyes, not the machines',) and I 
hoped to be charged for apprentices only. 

Work done by a special department of the estab- 
lishment, which was run as a special business con- 
cern, was charged at a profit to the department in 
which my work was done. It was "cost" to the 
" A " shop, but it was at a profit to the concern 
owning both the " A " and the " B " shops. But I 
had expected to get the benefit of this establishment 
having its own pattern-shop, foundry, etc. 

But what broke my heart and ruined my temper 



246 SHOP KINKS AND 

were the following headings, which appeared among 
the little items of ' ' cost : ' ' 

Interest, 
Depreciation, 
Wear, Tear and Repairs, 
Taxes and Assessments, 
Insurance, 
Superintendence , 
Correspondence and Accounting, 
Steam for Heating, 
Gas for Lighting , 
and lastly, 

General ! 

That is, I paid my share for the time during which 
the job was done, on all the foregoing items which 
entered into the debit side of the firm's ledgers. I 
paid not only ( ' my share ' ' of the interest on the build- 
ing in which my work was done, but on that of the 
others covering the adjacent blocks and owned by the 
same concern. (Whether or not I paid u my share " 
of this and other items on the buildings, from which 
came the patterns and castings, on which those depart- 
ments charged a profit, which were included in what 
was billed to me as u cost," I don't know.) I paid 
under the head of ' l general " " my share ' ' of the 
wages of every clerk, foreman, fireman, sweeper and 
oiler employed in " my shop," and " my share "of 
the wages of the watchman employed to keep my work 
from being burned or stolen at night. 

What was " my share?" 

It varied each day. 

If there was $3,000 worth of work done in the es- 
tablishment, and of this $30 worth was mine, I paid 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



247 



one per cent, of the total. If it was a slack week, and 
there was only $300 worth done, I paid ten per cent.; 
bnt it is no more than fair to say that this never hap- 
pened. Still I was glad that I was not the only cus- 
tomer during the few months in which my work was 
done. 

It might be well for my readers to consider well 
this question of "what constitutes cost," for it 
concerns the manufacturer much more than it does the 
customer. 

The firm I mention seldom lost on a contract. 

Keeping Account of Shop Work is a science in itself. 
The system in use at the Pratt & Whitney Co.'s is 
worth studying. Each kind and size of machine has 
a number and each part other numbers ; all are record- 
ed in a book somewhat thus : — 

1 6- INCH GRIP AND SCREW LATHE. 

26-inch grip and screw lathe. 



No. of 
Machine. 


No. of 
Piece. 


Name of 
Piece. 


24. 


3 

4 

6 

7 

24 

25 

27 


Butt for Screw. 

Collar for Spindle. 

Feed and Cock Binder. 

Spindle. 

Core-Head. 

Core- Gear. 

Bush- Gear. 



The conditions of the work on each piece is indi- 
cated by marks made on this record from time to time. 
Thus ( — ) means that the piece has been forged or 
cast ; (x) centered or chucked ; (*) roughed out ; (* — ) 
nearly finished ; (*— x) finished and ready to be 
assembled. 



248 



SHOP KINKS AND 



The time on this is kept on cards filled out by the 
workmen for the foreman, thus : — 



Work for Geo. Q. Whitney. 



For 16-inch lathes. 



No. of 
Machine. 


No. of 
Piece. 


No. of 
Pieces. 


Name of Pieces. 


24 


5 


60 


Internal Gear Stud. 



Date. 


Work by 


Hours. 


Operation. 


Jan. 19. 

" 20. 

Feb. 20. 


Tattle. 

Thompson. 


5 
10 
10 


Roughing. 
Milling. 



























Total number of hours . 

Total cost 

Average cost per piece . 



Consumption of Supplies. There are many shops 
running to-day, the proprietors of which cannot tell 
the cost of any one item in their production, except 
perhaps labor, in a general way. There are others 
where the cost in each item or sub-item is known to 
a decimal point, and where the proprietors can detect 
a leak or a waste the first week of its happening. 

In the matter of supplies too many shops have a 
u go as you please " system or way. Every one is 
allowed to call for as much of anything as he chooses 
to take the trouble to go for or send for. It is easy 
to see that in such shops there are many opportunities 
not merely for waste through carelessness, but 
for theft. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



249 



Those establishments where the account is taken of 
everything that is issued to anyone, and not only 
that but even the amount to any one department or 
any one man, assure me that it pays them to do it, 
just as much as it pays a housekeeper to know how 
much butter and how much sugar are used per week 
and per meal and how many pieces go in the wash 
each time from each member of the family and how 
many come back. 

In the Brown & Sharpe shops the system is at once 
simple and thorough. To commence with, in each 
department there is a blank, u cap " size, in which 

TOOL ROOM. 

£ No. Building. 

Consumption of Supplies by help for the four weeks ending 189 . . 



Cans of Oil. 



Files. 



No. 



Name. 



s. & 






the supplies drawn by each workman are entered. 
The heading of one of these blanks (that for the tool- 
room of any one building, the number of which lat- 
ter is to be filled in) is here given. If there is sud- 
denly a big run on some one kind of supply it will 
be known at once, so that if any man has a trick of 
washing his hands with waste and lard oil, or of 
pocketing Grobet files, it will be apt to be traced to 
him pretty quickly ; aud also if there is an extra run 
on any one kind of files it will be known, so that 
more may be purchased in time for that particular 
kind of work, or perhaps the work transferred to mill- 
ing-machines or emery grinders. 



250 



SHOP KIXKS AND 



There is another sheet in which the returns from 
the various departments are entered, as turned in by 
each on the forms just shown. I show the heading 
here. In the left-hand column, headed " Supplies," 
appear the following items : lard oil, sperm oil, No. i 
cosmoline, No. 2 cosmoline, and naphtha ; the word 
' ' gals n appearing at the head of each of the nine fol- 
lowing columns for these ; then, with the word 







TOOL ROOM. 












No Building. 






Consumption of Supplies by departments for the four weeks ending 




.189.. 














be 


^ / 






Supplies. 




£ 
£5 


§1 

oo 




CC02 


a 5 
V 


es 
52 > 






M 










a 


^,5 


Ph 





" dozen," items bastard, second cut, smooth and Gro- 
bet files, bench, thread and tin-handle brushes ; then 
belt-lacing (feet) ; next with " lbs. " items solder, iron 
rivets, copper rivets and waste ; then emery cloth 
(qrs.); next, with words "ft. and in." item " belt- 
ing," six times. On each blank there is place for 
other departments or other items, should new ones 
be added. 

Over=Time Work. — Fritz wanted to run his pattern- 
shop over- time last week, and he found, that in order 
to do it, he had to run all his main line, the whole 
180 feet of the shops, although the pattern-shop is at 
one end and the engine between it and the rest of the 
establishment. So all night 150 feet of three-inch 
shafting was running and using up oil and babbitt- 
metal, just because he didn't know enough to put in 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 251 

a clutch even anywhere along the line. It probably 
took four horse-power to run that straight line of 150 
feet ; and while the actual cost of coal for four horse- 
power for ten hours ought not to be over half a dollar, 
and the cost of oil and babbitt on the extra line, and 
the extra cost of oil and babbitt on the engine, may in- 
crease it but little, the risk of some of the bearings 
running dry, and of something happening in the 
shop where no work was going on , is so great that it 
is foolish to take it. Moreover, if he had wanted to 
run his pattern-shop and change pulleys in the main 
shop at the same time, he could not have done it. 

A clutch is a good thing. 

Loss in Correcting Bad Work. I don't like to see 
a man spend about four dollars' worth of time and 
forty cents' worth of tools, in correcting work that 
should have been right at first. Now, for instance, 
there is a man who is using a round file to correct a 
hole that did not come fair in boring. It will take 
him about a day and a half to go over that particular 
job ; he will use about forty cents' worth of file as I 
figure it. After he has got through he will only 
have a round hole, which he should have had at first ; 
and it will not be of the diameter that was desired , 
but will be too large. If he had properly used the 
tools and jigs that are at his disposal he would have 
saved you the cost of his time and file, and himself 
the mortification (if he feels it) of having done a bad 
job ; although what usually causes the mortification 
is not doing bad work, but being found out. He 
should no more use labor and round files to correct 
work in his department, than his fellow workmen 
should use a drift to correct bad punching in the 
boiler- shop. 



252 SHOP KINKS AND 

If your man will start out and mark off two circles, 
one of the proper size and the other half the size of 
the hole to be drilled, he will find out when he has 
got down to the size of the smaller circle, whether he 
has made his start right or not ; and if he has not, he 
can readily correct himself before he has gone far 
enough to do any harm ; but if he waits until he gets 
to the full diameter of the hole, it will be too late. 

The Figurer. In almost every community there is 
some man or other who has certain figures by which 
he swears under all circumstances. Sometimes the 
figures are right and sometimes they are wrong. 
More often they are right under certain conditions 
and "away off" under others. The worst case of 
figurer of which I know is the man who figures up 
belt-power and that sort of thing. He is of the class 
who rush in where angels fear to tread. It 'is his rule 
that 600 feet per minute of single-leather belting one 
inch wide will carry one horse-power. With him, 
that rule is like the laws of the Medes and Persians 
in that it altereth not neither is it to be changed. It 
makes no difference what kind of a pulley the belt 
runs on, nor how many degrees of arc of contact, nor 
whether it is a vertical or a horizontal belt, or an 
open one or a crossed one, nor how tight it is 
stretched, nor what the diameter of the smaller pulley 
— it is 600 feet to the horse-power and that settles it. 
As it often takes 1200 feet, and as sometimes 400 will 
do it, one can readily see that the figurer will some- 
times come out wrong, and may indeed be the cause 
of some figuring on the wrong side of the ' ' Profit and 
Loss ' ' account in the ledger. 

Another figurer is the one who needs a certain dis- 
charge of water from a given area under a given head 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 253 

or with a given velocity, no matter whether the open- 
ing is round or square, long and narrow, or angular ; 
no matter whether it is tapering down or flaring, nor 
whether the material is rough wood, or polished iron 
tube ; his ' ' 90 cubic feet of water with a rate of flow 
of two feet per second " has got to be accepted. As 
a matter of fact there are cases where the actual flow 
is only one-half of the theoretical at this speed, in- 
stead of the three-quarters which gives the rate of 90 
cubic feet. But little things like that don't bother 
the flgurer. One of them indeed had 120 cubic feet 
per minute through a square foot of orifice, with a 
flow rate of two feet per second ; and when it was 
shown him that the maximum amount that could 
possibly go out at that speed, supposing that there 
was no friction at all between the water and the walls 
of the orifice, was 120 cubic feet, he acted just about 
like that other man, who on being shown where his 
statements did not coincide with the observed facts, 
calmly remarked tc so much the worse for the facts." 

All of us who figure should bear in mind that con- 
stants and rules are properly obtained from average 
practice, and that they are seldom invariable. New- 
ark, N. J., is just now ( December, 1895) preparing 
to lay a supplementary pipe-line for its water-supply, 
because the one already laid, with dimensions based 
on an erroneous constant based on the Rochester line, 
carries only about half to two-thirds what was ex- 
pected. 

Calculating Horse=Power There is no use in going 
up stairs for the privilege of coming down, either in 
walking, language, or calculation. When figuring 
up horse-power it is usually necessary to get at the 
area of the piston-head by squaring the diameter and 



254 SHOP KINKS AND 

multiplying the square by 0.7854 ; and then it is nec- 
essary to divide by 33,000. Now as 0.7854 -f- 33000 
= 0.0000238, that figure may be used as a direct 
multiplier, thus not only saving time, but lessening 
the chances of mistakes by substituting one opera- 
tion for two. 

Another good figure to remember in this connec- 
tion is that 20 J inches is the diameter of a circle 
having an area of 330 square inches ; and for an 
engine of this piston-diameter the horse-power at 100 
lbs. per square inch mean effective pressure is equal 
to the piston-speed. 

Net Horse=Power of Steam=Engines. About 1893 
I published a rule for giving the net horse-power of 
steam-engines, allowing about 16 per cent, for friction; 
which is about right in most cases. As I have many 
times been asked for it I repeat it : Multiply the 
mean effective pressure in pounds per square inch by 
double the piston-speed in feet and by the square of 
the piston-diameter in inches ; then point off five 
places from the right. Thus: an engine 10" x 12" 
at 200 turns per minute, with 50 pounds per square 
inch of mean effective pressure, should by this rule 
have a net horse-power of 50 x 800 x 100 = 40 
(00000.) Its gross horse-power would be 50 x 78.54 
x 400 ~ 33000 =47.6 

Another form of the rule for net horse-power, allow- 
ing about 16 per cent, for friction, is to multiply the 
mean effective pressure by one-fifth the piston-speed in 
feet and by the square of the piston-diameter, and 
point off four places. Thus the same engine, allowing 
16 per cent, for friction, etc., would have 50 x 80 x 
100 = 40 (0000) net horse-power. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



255 



In all engines of 12 inches bore the gross horse- 
power equals the product of the mean effective 
pressure and the travel in feet per minute, divided by 
291.8 ; and the net horse-power is about equal to the 
mean effective pressure times thrice the piston-speed, 
with three figures pointed off from the right. 

Thus : 1 2 -inch engine has 40 pounds mean effect- 
ive pressure, and 400 feet piston-speed: then the net 
horse-power equals 400 x 1200 = 48. 

A simple formula for horse-power, which I got up 
in the long ago, is PA T-±- 33,000; P being the mean 
effective pressure in pounds per square inch, ^1 the 
piston-area in square inches, and T the piston-travel 
in feet per minute. 

Pressure on Safety= Valves. Calculations aside, the 
pressure on a safety-valve may be determined by a 
good scale hooked at the point at which the valve- stem 
is connected with the lever. The lever being hori- 
zontal as shown in Figure 160, the pull on the scale 



m 



7 K 

Fig. 160. — Pressure on Safety- Valves. 
shows how much pressure there is exerted on the valve 
proper by the beam without any u pee." The pee 
being put in place at any desired position, the balance 
will indicate just what pressure the lever and pee will 
put on the valve. The valve being weighed separately 



256 



SHOP KINKS AND 



on the same balance, and its weight added to the 
amount due to the lever and pee, you have the 
entire weight on the valve. This being divided by 
the area of the valve, (as taken from a table of areas of 
circles or figured out by multiplying the square of the 
diameter by 0.7854), the pressure per square inch at 
which the valve will blow off will be known. 

Where it is desired to calculate the effect of the pee 
two distances should be measured, as shown in Figure 
161; that (d) from the fulcrum to the valve-stem 
and that (D) from the fulcrum (not from the valve- 
stem) to the pee. Then in the same proportion as 
that between d and D will the weight of the pee be 




Fig. 161. — Pressure on Safety- Valves. 

multiplied by the leverage. But it must be remem- 
bered that to this the dead weight of the valve and 
stem, and the multiplied pressure due to the weight 
of the lever, must be added. Thus, if the lever when 
removed and balanced in a strong loop, balances at a 
point distant say eighteen inches from the fulcrum, 
and the stem is six inches from the fulcrum, the weight 
of the lever will be multiplied 18-^6 equals three 
times, by its own leverage. 

We will suppose that this is the case ; that the lever 
weighs seven pounds, the valve and stem six, and the 
pee fifty ; and that the pee stands at a distance D equal 
to four times d. Then we have for the pressure ex- 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 257 

erted by the pee 4 x 50=200 ; for that exerted by the 
lever 3 x 7=21, and for that exerted by the valve and 
stem 6 ; total pressure 200 + 21 + 6=227 pounds. 

Finding the Center of Gravity. You sometimes 
need to find the center of gravity of an irregular 
figure. If it is a piece of regular thickness, cut out 
its outline in stout pasteboard of regular quality 
throughout, and then stick a needle squarely through 
it about where you think the center should be, until 
you find a place at which it will stay in any position 
in which you place it, when the needle is held horizon- 
tal and the hole is large enough to let the piece turn 
freely. 

Another way is to make a little plumb-bob of a 
thread and a bullet and hang it from the needle when 
the latter is stuck in two places near the periphery of 
the card. Where the lines cross will be the center 
of gravity. 

Atmospheric Pressure. The pressure of the atmos- 
phere is given in text-books, engineers' pocket-books, 
etc., as all sorts of things from 14.7 pounds per 
square inch each way. So many different decimals 
are given that sometimes it is difficult to check off 
the accuracy of a result or of a formula. 

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures, 
andtheU.-S. Coast Survey, use as their figure for 
reduction, a standard of pressure representing that of 
a column of mercury 760 mm high, at a temperature 
of o°C equals 32 F, at sea-level in latitude 45 °. 
Under these circumstances a column of mercury is 
balanced by a column of air weighing 14.697 pounds 
per square inch. This value is derived thus : 

13.5956 (density of mercury) x 76 x 6.4517 x 
.00220462 equals 14.697. 



258 



SHOP KINKS SND 



Anchoring Beams to Blocks is often called for ; and 
when done it should be done " for keeps." One 
very good way emanating from Sibley College in its 
early days shows how it may be done by a taper plug 
having its largest diameter just equal to the hole 
drilled in the rock, and a gas-pipe of the same diam- 




Fig. 162. — Anchoring Beams to Rocks. (Sweet.) 

eter. The plug being dropped or pushed into the 
hole in the rock, the latter having been drilled and 
the timbers bored to the same diameter as the outside 
of the pipe, the tube is then driven down, and when 
it finds the plug its lower end is expanded into the 
rock so that it will be larger than the hole above. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 259 

The upper end of the pipe may be expanded and 
turned over as shown in the sketch. 

Plumb=Bobs are seldom if ever made of the right 
shape to insure their coming to rest soon. They are 
usually made of pear shape with the string where the 
stem would be ; or when they are intended to indi- 
cate a point underneath them, instead of a line along- 
side of the line, they are top-shaped with a sharp 
spike. In the former case the swinging is stopped in 
the least possible time permissible with such a bob, 
by letting it hang in a pail of water or very thin mud, 
or some other liquid. 






Figs. 163 to 165. — ForxMs of Plumb-Bobs. 

But both of these forms are all wrong. Any body 
tends to rotate about its shorter axis ; and if not hung 
in this line it will not make any difference, but will 
wabble about and try to assume that line. That this 
is a fact, any school-boy who has attended lectures on 
physics, and seen a whirling-machine cause a chain 
ring hung by one edge to flatten out and revolve 
about an imaginary axis, can attest. Now the plumb- 
bob should be turnip-shaped, so that it can be hung 



26o SHOP KINKS AND 

on its shortest axis ; and then all the whirling that 
it can undertake will not make this axis swerve from 
a vertical line. If for ordinary use in plumbing col- 
umns, etc., it needs no points ; but if it is to be hung 
so as to point to a particular spot on the ground 
it should have a spike as a prolongation of this 
shorter axis. 

PIumb=Bob Lines may be readily reeled up by using 
the cheapest kind of fishing-rod reel on a short pine 
stick. It is just as good as though it cost forty dollars. 

Plumb=Bob Tips screwed to the body of the bob may 
have a milled flange about half an inch from the butt 
end, and a thread cut on both sides of this flange, 
so that when the bob is not in use the point may be 
unscrewed and turned into the body of the bob, thus 
lessening the room required and diminishing the chance 
of injury to the point. 

To Press in Connecting=Rod Bushings, driving-box 
brasses, etc., it is well to have some stirrups made of 
about two to two-and-a half inches square steel, the 
legs to be drilled with seven-eighths-inch to one-inch 
holes about three inches apart; these stirrups to be 
passed through holes in a cast-iron base about one and 
one-half by two feet square. The jack being set on 
the base and the driving-box, connecting-rod or other 
piece against the stirrup, a common jack may be in- 
troduced and the work done with neatness and dis- 
patch. The various pairs of holes in the stirrup-piece 
will enable holding work of different dimensions with- 
out changing stirrups, and without working the jack 
too far. Any slight difference in dimension may be 
taken up by a shim, so that there need not be too 
much pumping. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 261 

Disconnecting a Piston=Rod. Jake Damphool, down 
at the Vulcan Works, disconnected the piston-rod of 
their engine, which was screwed into the crosshead, 
by a pair of pipe-tongs ; and a pretty-looking rod he 
had of it , after he had got through . Will Wide-awake , 
over at the Etna Works, clamped two pieces of hard- 
wood together with a piece of pasteboard between them, 
described on their ends a circle of the diameter of the 
piston-rod, sawed that out, and thus had a clamp on 
which he could use a long wrench. You had better 
try his plan ; and before you replace the rod give the 
thread a good coating of graphite and oil, and it will 
run in more easily ; then the next time you want to 
disconnect you will find it give only about one-half 
the trouble. 

For Removing Piston=Rods from Crossheads where 
they have got too firmly seated, it is convenient to 
have a small hydraulic ram such as is used in some rail- 
way shops. But there are many places where such work 
is done so seldom that there is no use in investing in 
the ram ; and again many rods have to be removed 
in place, and the ram is not always handy. For such 
work it is often best to have a short piece of crop-end 
of shafting, with an inch hole bored nearly all the 
way through its length, and having at right angles to 
this a slot (say an inch wide by two inches long for 
a three-inch piece of shafting) extending clear through. 
In the lengthwise hole place a steel cylinder five- 
sixteenths-inches in diameter, (or the crop-end of so- 
called inch rod or iron shafting, in default of anything 
better) of a length sufficient to reach from the end of 
the large block, to the cross slot. This is the plun- 
ger, and the large block is the cylinder of this me- 
chanical ram, the power of which is to be gained by 



262 



SHOP KINKS AND 



a wedge. Placing this between the rod-end and the 
wrist-pin, and putting between its end and the pin a 
packing-piece of copper, the rod may be forced out 
by a well black-leaded steel wedge of slight taper — 
the slighter the taper the more easily the work 
is done. 

A Driving-Block, such as is shown in Figure 166, 
has a solid foundation, and may be used for driving 
out spindles whether they be one-half or four inches 
in diameter. The opening is V-shaped and the face 
plain. By reversing it there is presented a good anvil 
for straightening shafting. 




Fig. 166. — Driving-Block. 



The cost is but slight ; the room which it takes up 
insignificant ; while the number of times when it will 
prove serviceable makes it well worth its keep. It 
should be of good tough cast iron and free from sharp 
re-entrant angles. The sketch shows sufficiently 
clearly how it may be given great strength to resist 
blows with comparatively little weight. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



263 



Drift for Arbors. Drifting arbors is no fun if the 

drift happens to slip, as by a foul blow. The liabil- 
ity of this happening is very much lessened by the 




Fig. 167. — Drift for Arbors. 

device shown in Figure 167, B being a babbitt-metal 
disk, the thickness of which is less than the depth of 
the recess in which it fits. 

A Shrinkage-Gage which was brought out at the 
Hartford Steam Engineering Co'.s Works should 
prove handy. As shown in Figures 168 and 169, A 
is a frame having at its lower end a fixed measuring- 
piece B, and at its upper end a thread and taper split 
hub, receiving externally a taper- threaded screw cap 
C and internally a tube E, having at its bottom a fixed 
plug F. The adjustable measuring-leg is threaded 
with the tube E, so as to be adjustable for various 
diameters of boxes, but may be locked by the jam- 
nut H. The cap-nut G and jam-nut iJonce loosened 
and screwed back, allowing the stem G and the tube 



264 



SHOP KINKS AND 



E to be adjusted to the exact size of the shaft for 
which a shrinkage fit is to be bored, the cap-end C 
and jam-nut H are screwed home ; the nut C draw- 
ing the split hub of the tube E, so that the shaft 
measurement is made with all the lost motion of the 
device taken into account. Then C is loosened, E 





Figs. 168 and 169. — Shrinkage-Gage. (Hartford S. E. Co.) 



raised up by turning to admit a shrinkage-gage 
piece J, Figure 169, the thickness of which equals the 
amount to be allowed for the size of bore to be shrunk 
on the shaft. J being inserted, E is turned back so as 
to bind J between the end E and the flat piece B, 
when C is screwed down, again clamping E. 

Erection=Blocks. In every large shop where heavy 
machinery is erected, there is felt the necessity of 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 265 

some way of giving the machines a firm, solid founda- 
tion during erection, and often during test also. It 
would be impossible to have the entire shop floor so 
solid as to do away with the necessity for special 
foundations, and it is expensive to build these even 
temporarily. In the Bement & Miles shops they 
employ " erection-blocks " of cast iron, say six feet 
long, and twelve inches by nine on the end, cored 
out to lighten them, and planed over all four sides. 
Combinations of these are much better than wooden 
balks, as they have the advantage of being of absolute 
standard size, and of affording an even bearing all 
over their surfaces ; also they permit various combina- 
tions of hight which may be convenient where 
certain under portions of the machines in course of 
erection are higher than others. 

To supplement their use there are also very short 
screw-jacks, which aid in supporting portions of the 
machines which could not be brought to a bearing 
on long blocks, or which might not be an even multi- 
ple of twelve or nine inches from the floor. 

Hydraulic Fits. In the fine shops of the H. Bol- 
linckx Co., in Brussels, Belgium, (where the present 
manager, Mr. Arthur Bollinckx, is in his make-up, 
about as near an approach to a New England Yankee 
as anyone I have found in that bustling, practical 
little kingdom,) they have an excellent way of attain- 
ing two desirable objects in making jacketed steam- 
cylinders for Corliss engines. The cylinder proper is 
cast with one pair of * ' nozzles ' ' for the valves of one 
end, the other end being the li pipe. " or " runner " 
end. The jacket is cast with the other pair of noz T 
zles, for the valves of the other end of the engine ; 
the other end of this casting being the sinking-head. 



266 SHOP KINKS AND 

Then both sinking-heads are cnt off and the two 
castings are made to fit each other u metal to metal, " 
being forced together hydraulically. Thus we have 
cylinders with no honey-combs in either the bushing 
or cylinder proper, or the jacket ; there are no leaky 
joints ; and no cores can float out of place and afford 
the steam insufficient passage-way — as sometimes 
happens when a chaplet fetches loose in our ordinary 
system of making these same things. 

Screwing Pieces Together. The ordinary practice 
of laying out and doing work, where one piece has to 
be fastened to another by two or more screws, is to lay 
out the centers for the bolt-holes and tap-holes by 
cross-marks which are then prick-punched ; and the 
holes are next drilled and tapped. The holes may 
or may not be accurately spaced, so that the pieces 
go together with greater or less difficulty ; and some- 
times one screw pulls one way and another in another 
direction. Then, according as one or the other screw 
is tightened first, the part assumes different positions. 
If the holes are made considerably too large, there 
may perhaps be less trouble about assembling, but 
more as regards the firmness of the machine when 
put together. 

In the Bilgram shops, in Philadelphia, the practice 
is much better than this. There only one of the 
tap-holes is tapped at first ; then screwing the part to 
be held in place by this one screw, the remaining 
holes are tapped, letting the full-sized holes act as 
guides for the tap. 

This method of procedure takes a little longer at 
first, but in the end it pays by reason of the superior 
accuracy of the work. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



267 



Scaffold = Dogs. Where round timbers are used, it 
is rattier more difficult to make scaffolds than where 
square ones are available. But our neighbors across 
the water make use sometimes of dogs, by which 
quite large poles may be rapidly and securely clamped 
together and very readily taken down when desired. 
As shown in Figures 170 and 171, there is a V-shaped 



piece 



of round iron, the free ends of which are bent 





Figs. 170 and 171. — Scaffold-Dogs. 

round so that it may be described as a U-shaped hook 
or a hooked U. Its bow is passed through a double 
dog having downwardly -projecting teeth which may 
be driven into the vertical member. The horizontal 
timber being laid in the upturned arms of the U- 
shaped hook as shown in Figure 170, the greater the 
weight brought on the hook the more firmly the teeth 
of the dog are driven into the vertical timber. 

Ladder Scaffold = Bracket. I have been putting up 
some scaffolding, and using ordinary short ladders as 
the uprights. This is the way it is done : The 
plank upon which the men work is supported by 
ifxijxij inch T-angle irons D, bent at one end 



268 



SHOP KINKS AXD 



E, to half encircle the ladder-round J5, and at the 
other end F y turned up and perforated with a 7-16 
inch hole. A strap E, 1} x § inches, is twisted and 
bent so as to half encircle the rung C, and has at its 
other end a number of 7-16 inch holes, in line, so as to 
permit the plank to be kept in cross level, no matter 
what the inclination of the side-pieces A. Pins 7-16- 
inch in diameter with heads and split cotters connect 
E with D at F. There is at each end of the plank a 
piece similar to Z), fastened there by four long flush- 




Fig. 172. — Ladder Scaffold-Bracket. 

screws ; the plank resting also on the flanges of the 
T's. About a foot from each end there is another 
piece similar in outline to D but made of plain strap, 
1 J x J inches, bent as at G and as at F y but twisted so 
as to present the flat side to the under surface of the 
board. Four short flush- screws fix each of these to 
the board at such distance from D as to bring the 
straps at the ends of the rounds where the latter are 
strongest against shearing. In the sketch, G is 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 269 

shown hooked to the next ronnd above the one on 
which D rests ; but there should be length enough of 
E to permit it being hooked to the round next but 
one above B. 

Stagings. In these days of towering buildings a 
fall from a scaffolding or staging means more than it 
did when three, or at most, four stories was the limit ; 
and care should be taken to have the supports of the 
strongest character, while ease of putting up and tak- 
ing down, as well as cheapness, be not forgotten. It 
may be taken for granted that the old way of cutting 
or leaving holes in the walls, through which to pass 
joists, has about passed away ; also that the erection 
of a forest of rough boards and round or square timber, 
nailed, bolted or lashed together in a crude manner, 
is not in accord with the spirit of metropolitan con- 
structive art. Staging for brick-layers requires to 
be strong, stiff and light, and must be of a character 
to be easily put up and taken down by unskilled 
laborers. Assuming that a wall has been run just 
past the second floor line — say to the window-sills ; 
the joists, of course, being in their place, what is the 
best way to put up staging to accommodate the men 
and materials ? One way is as shown in Figure 1 73 > 
in which W is th^ wall, J one of the joists under a win- 
dow, P a 3 x 10-inch, or better yet, a 3 x 12-inch 
piece, one of several which are to support the ij-inch 
boards F, which constitute the staging floor. A 
double hook iJ, shown separately in Figure 174, is 
made of strap or bar iron three inches wide, one-half 
inch thick ; slipped under the joist /, and held while the 
plank P is slipped under its upper end ; wedges are 
driven in to bring P level, and the plank is then 
ready to receive the weight. The hooks should be 



270 SHOP KINKS AND 

forged so as to take in the joists and planks snugly. 




ONE WAY OF PUTTING UP A STAGING 




VIEW OF DOUBLE HOOK 

F 




another method of supporting a staging 
Figs. 172, 173, 174. — Stagings. 

If there is any lateral looseness, a wedge should be 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 271 

driven in to keep the planks P from rocking. Tres- 
tles may be put on the floor F, if desired, but never 
rested on bricks, as is a common custom, in order to 
gain a couple of inches. 

Another method of hanging or supporting external 
stagings is shown in Figure 1 75, in which the line D E 
F G H K represents an iron bar 1x3 inches, bent 
as shown, and L M N another, bent and twisted in 
the line indicated and bolted to the other, if desired. 
Omitting L M N, the bar D E F G H makes a good 
hanger, which may be hooked in the window, W rep- 
resenting the wall and G the casings. The plank P 
serves as a staging for painters, pointers and other 
workmen who do not require hods of material to be 
brought to them. Q gives a higher reach if desired. 
An off-set M prevents the plank Q being displaced 
laterally, and another, 0, serves as a rest for what- 
ever blocking, i2, may be required to keep the hanger 
vertical when affixed to a wall thinner than the 
maximum to which it can be applied. If desired, L 
M N may be of sufficient length between L and M to 
raise the plank Q to the level of K ; the same bolt 
going clear through three thicknesses instead of two. 
This will give a ' l second reach ' ' considerably higher 
than that shown in the illustration at Q. The hanger 
as arranged may be used to support trestles, a narrow 
plank S being inserted for that purpose. Instead 
of the twist in the line M iV, there may be one in 
K L } which will allow a wider board to be used at Q ; 
or there may be lateral off-sets, without twists, in 
both K L and M N ; those in every strap similar to 
M N being, say, to the right, as viewed from 3I y and 
those in all similar to K L being to the left, as viewed 
from the same point. 



272 SHOP KINKS AND 

Common Sense in Arrangement. One day I was 

much struck by a very great waste of time and labor 
which was taking place at the entrance of an immense 
establishment, and probably was an indication of other 
wastes which were going on within. 

There were being discharged from a truck at the 
door, a number of large packages which weighed from 
seven hundred to nine hundred pounds each , and were 
not handy to lift or carry. Bach of these had to be 
weighed and its number and gross weight noted, before 
being put upon the elevator and taken upstairs. The 
position of the doorway, scales and elevator are as 
indicated by Figure 1 76 ; 

H 1 H 




Fig, 176. — Wrong Arrangement. 

D being the doorway, E the elevator and S the 
scales. Every package on being rolled in from the 
truck was taken from D to $, and then packed and 
turned so that it might be run on the elevator, which 
was capable of taking several of them at once. The 
doorway was ample, and there was plenty of room all 
round for any disposition that might have seemed the 
most practical. 

Had I been doing that job I should have arranged 
it about as follows :— running the packages in from 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



273 



the doorway to the scales at once, then keeping on 
with them under the scales and to the elevator plat- 
form. This was an establishment in which there was 
a constant stream of tierces and cases, each of which 
had to be weighed, and all of which came in at the 
same door, and went up the same elevator. Why the 




Fig. 177. — Better Arrangement. 

scales should have been put in the dark, beyond the 
elevator, and the packages and tierces taken back on 
their track, is beyond me. 

The former arrangement strikes me as not at all 
practical. 

Cranes and Their Kin. Every now and then I see 
some establishment or other stalled with its crane 
unable to lift a load, which . the crane itself is strong 
enough to hold np, but which the hoisting-gear is not 
powerful enough to raise or control. This leads me 
to point out some ways by which as long as the struc- 
ture itself — the mast, the boom, and the rest of its 
framing — is strong enough, as well as the building to 
which it is fixed, if it is so fastened, the lifting-power 
of the gears may be increased. 

Once in a while with hand cranes, this is done by 
having instead of the ordinarily-used spur and pinion, 
another pair having greater pitch-ratio. Thus, if there 



274 SHOP KINKS AND 

is for " every-day " use a thirty-six- inch spur served 
by an eight-inch pinion, making four and one-half to 
one, with a distance between centers of twenty- two 
inches, to have another pair with a ratio of seven to 
one, the spur having a pitch-diameter of thirty-eight 
and one-half inches to the pinion's five and one-half 
inches. The four and one-half to one gears being 
removed, the seven to one can be keyed on in their 
place. These gears should have wider faces than 
those which do less work, as the strain on the teeth 
is greater. 

Another way is to fasten to the end of the boom a 
ring or a stud to which the hook of the hoisting-rope 
or chain may be attached after the rope or chain is 
passed through a single block having a hook to 
which the load may be made fast. The result of this 
will be that for every foot of chain that is hauled in 
by the windlass the load will be raised only six 
inches, so that the hoisting-power of the crab will 
be about doubled. (It would be just doubled if it 
were not for the friction of the extra block.) 

Of course, neither of these methods will enable a 
crane to raise a weight greater than can be properly 
put on its frame or on the chain and gears. If there 
should be any doubt about the latter, the windlass 
may be made to do double work without putting any 
extra strain on the frame which bears it, or on the 
chain itself, by catching hold of one end of the load 
and raising it, using the other end as a fulcrum ; rais- 
ing as high as is convenient, blocking up at the raised 
end, catching hold of the other end and doing the 
same thing, and so on, alternately raising, blocking 
and shifting. This plan will answer better for long 
articles such as very heavy girders or posts, or for 



MACHIXE SHOP CHAT. 275 

long cylindrical boilers, than for short ones like 
marine engines. 

This plan of increasing the hoisting-power of the 
crane is sometimes desirable, not because the crane 
itself or its chain or gears may be weak, but because 
of lack of good hoisting-power. In some parts of 
the country, or in some conditions of the labor mark- 
et, there may be insufficient man-power at the crane ; 
but if the gear may be changed from four and one- 
half to one up to seven to one, one strong man can 
do as much work with it as two light ones ; or two 
light men can do as much as two strong ones. 

Where there is no crane that may be made of suffi- 
cient power, or where the existing cranes will not 
reach, there should be some one about the place who 
has ingenuity enough to rig up a tackle out of a few 
ropes or chains and blocks , attached to the overhead 
timbers of the building, if there are any available, 
and if there are not, by the use of spars or of long 
balks resting on the wall-plates or in the upper win- 
dow-opening, or set in a tripod on the ground. 
Such spars should be lashed together with a rigger's 
hitch or with some of the suitable rope-fastenings 
which may be learned from Brainard's little book on 
" Knots, Splices, Hitches, Bends and Lashings." 
Care should be taken to have the spread of the tim- 
bers as great as possible in order to give sufficient 
room among them to manceuver the piece to be lifted ; 
although it must also be remembered that the more 
spread such tripod has for a given length of legs, the 
less load it can carry ; a fact that must be borne in 
mind in handling heavy weights with long light 
timbers, the strength of which has never been proved. 
All such timbers, if not perfectly square in cross sec- 



276 SHOP KINKS AND 

tion, should be so placed that the strain will come on 
them in the direction of their greatest width. Thus a 
two by eight is sixteen times as strong edgewise as 
crosswise, to a load applied at right angles to its 
length ; and while this same ratio does not apply to 
where it is used as the legs of a tripod, and gets strain 
partly endwise and partly crosswise, this fact should 
be borne in mind and taken advantage of. 

All hoisting- chains should be annealed from time 
to time. After they break and kill someone is the 
wrong time to anneal them ; prevention is better. 

The bearings of all blocks should be kept well lubri- 
cated with black-lead, either with or without tallow 
or other grease. Those which have hinged shells are 
better than those with solid blocks, because they will 
permit the rapid reeving through them of ropes or of 
chains having hooks on their ends ; it being easier to 
open a snap-block, lay the rope or chain in the groove, 
and close and latch the shell, than to unbend the rope 
from the hook or detach the chain from it — especial- 
ly in view of the swivel that there should be at the 
hook. 

Hoisting-rope should be chosen not only with ref- 
erence to its strength and durability, but with a view 
to flexibility. It will be found well to smear all 
hoisting-rope well with graphite (black-lead) and with 
a trifle of tallow. This will greatly increase the ease 
with which it reeves through the blocks, and to some 
extent lessen its stiffness without impairing its 
strength. 

All hoisting-ropes and chains should be kept, when 
not in use, either extended in place all ready to be 
put into service on a moment's notice, or properly 
coiled up in parallel ( ( fakes ' ' of easy curve ; then 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



277 



they will last longer and be more readily paid out or 
handled when the time comes that they are wanted. 

How to Handle Large Castings. Balance is the 
thing. Here you are straining everything and every- 




Fig. 178. — Handling Large Castings Wrongly. 

body, because nearly every one that you have slung 
is so hung that it will only hang one way, and in 



2 ;8 SHOP KINKS AND 

addition to that it hangs lower than it should to be 
conveniently handled, requiring you to lift it higher 
than if you were to sling it differently. Now in raising 
Cleopatra's Needle, which is somewhat of a massive 
stone, the engineers calculated its center of gravity so 
nicely, that when they got on its iron jacket and raised 
it by its trunnions, it balanced so exactly that one man 
could cause the entire great mass of two-hundred tons 
to swing. Don't you suppose that that enabled them 
to handle it more easily than if it had been picked up 
about five feet to one side of its center of gravity, so as 
to have a long end tipping down and leaning against 
everything in the way ? 

Electric Cranes. Now-a-days instead of getting in 
cranes where they will go, the shop is designed to fit 
around the crane ; and in two cases out of three it will 
be an electric crane. Down the center of the modern 
shop is an immense nave like that of a church, flanked 
on either side by two-story or three-story galleries, 
above what would correspond to the transepts of the 
church. The great master-crane travels the full length 
of the shop and handles every heavy piece; its move- 
ments being governed by from one to three motors 
and comprising hoisting, lengthwise motion, and 
traversing, each at variable speeds suitable to the 
work to be done. In the Baldwin Locomotive Works, 
one of the new shops has track accommodations for 
seventy-five engines at once. Every place in it is 
controlled by the great traveling crane, which has a 
capacity of one hundred tons and will pick up the 
heaviest engine built, lift it high above all the other 
work in the shop, and carry it to any place selected; 
and when all the operations are completed will place 
it on the two main cross- tracks, on which it may be 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 279 

taken out of the shop with its own steam — or, as is 
more usual, towed out. In another shop, in handling 
locomotive-drivers on their axles — formerly such a 
pair of wheels took about thirty men half an hour to 
get them from where they were finished to their place 
at engine for which they were designed ; now, with 
the electric crane, two men do it in five minutes. 

The question of three motors versus one is often 
agitated. The Baldwin people prefer to have all three 
of the movements controlled by but one, -and to have 
another as a spare, all ready to be thrown into service 
in ten minutes in case of break-down of the regular 
one. Where there are three, they claim that there is 
three times the chance of a break-down ; and a 
break-down of any one of three puts the entire crane 
out of service. 

A Wrinkle About Cranes. There are, of course, 
thousands of shops where it is not possible to put in 
electric cranes, and where it would not be advisable 
to go to the expense even if it were possible. Yet 
there arise emergencies when it would be desirable 
to have a crane in some particular place, just for a 
day if not permanently. 

Noting in the cylinder-shop of the Baldwin Loco- 
motive Works that on every other post there was 
an electric jib crane which commanded practically 
the entire space in a radius up to the next post, so 
that the heaviest cylinders with their saddles and all 
could be taken right out of one special tool and land- 
ed in another on a truck, the idea occurred to me 
that in shops similarly constructed, having circular 
iron columns supporting the roofs or holding up gal- 
leries, it would be feasible to have collars bolted 
around every post, near the base and above, and to 



28o 



SHOP KINKS AND 



have jib or other cranes which might be temporarily 
affixed to the post ; being operated by hand or by 
electric motor as might be desirable. A shoe partly 
embracing the pillar at the bottom and resting on 
the collar, would serve as the lower support for an 
iron tube for the jib proper, and would receive thrust 
strains only ; a strip encircling the pillar near the 




Figs. 179 and 180. — Temporary Cranes. 

top would answer as the point of attachment for a 
narrow beam of rectangular section, bearing at its 
outer end on the outer and upper end of the boom ; 
and on this would play the pulley- trolley. Where 
the pillar was large, there could be two tubes for the 
boom, these coming together at the top in A style. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 281 

Such a temporary crane could be put up in a short 
time by two men, and would serve to handle pieces 
cheaply, which would otherwise cost a great deal of 
labor and consume a good deal of time to move. 

A good swabbing with black-lead (graphite) and 
tallow on the top edge of each collar would make the 
device slew readily. The lower shoe would require 
a back-strap to prevent accidents, but this need not 
be heavy. The upper member having a pull on it 
should encircle the pillar more completely. 

A variation of this for such places as would not per- 
mit very well of the space about the bottom of the pillar 
being taken up by a crane, would be to have two 
collars both well up on the hight of the pillar ; the 
lower one to receive a shoe for the support of a hori- 
zontal beam of rectangular cross section, and the 
upper one to take the downward thrust of a strap, 
having attached to it one or more tension members 
supporting the outer end of the jib. (See Figure 180.) 
In fact, the same pillar might have all three collars so 
that either portable crane could be affixed to it as 
occasion warranted. 

Lashing Derrick Timbers. With ordinary temporary 
derricks, consisting of two timbers lashed together, 
there are many wrong ways and but few right ones of 
lashing so as to be sure of three things : ( 1 ) that the 
lashings will hold, (2) that the timbers will neither 
spread further nor come together when the strain is 
on the lashings, and (3) that the lashings can be got 
apart when the work is over and it is time to take 
down the derrick. Before doing anything of this 
kind it will be well to remember that of the two usual 
ways of lashing, there is one which has a tendency to 
' ( gather ' ' the legs together when the strain is put on 



282 



SHOP KINKS AND 



it, and another which has a tendency to spread them 
farther apart under the load. This tendency may in 
either case be counteracted during the lashing and 
erection so that it may be made an advantage instead 
of a disadvantage. 

Figure 181 shows two round timbers, A and B ) 
which are lashed together so that there is a tendency 
to bring the " legs" closer. To make this lashing, 




Figs. 181, 182 and 183. — Lashing Derrick Timbers. 

fasten one end of the rope to the end of timber A 
with a "timber hitch," (shown in Figure 182 and 
explained later) then pass it around the horizontal 
crotch of the spars from back to front and left to right 
several times, bring it through from the back to the 
front and secure it to the last cross-turn with a ' ' clove 
hitch." (Shown in Figure 183.) 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 283 

While making this lashing while the timbers are 
on the gronnd, the feet should be brought closer to- 
gether than it is desired that they shall be when 
erected and in use ; then when raised they should be 
spread apart, which will tighten the lashing. 

To make the ' ' timber hitch ' ' for the purpose of 
holding the free end of the lashing in beginning, take 
the free end around the timber, then back around the 
standing part, then give it a few turns about itself, 
and haul taut. (See Figure 182.) 

The ' ' clove hitch ' ' is made either as at E, or as at 
F, Figure 183. When made as shown in £, it may 
be cast loose at once by hauling on the free end ; as 
F is rather more difficult to unfasten. 

The ' ' straight-spread ' ' lashing is made in the 
same way as the straight gathering kind shown in 
Figure 181, except that the rope is passed through the 
vertical crotch instead of through the horizontal. In 
making it the two legs should be spread farther apart 
than they are desired to be when erected ; and then 
bringing them together when they are lashed, the 
lashing will be tightened. 

Serve the free end of the rope with small cord to 
keep it from unraveling. 

Temporary Hoisting. Once in a while it becomes 
necessary in almost any shop to carry an extraordin- 
arily heavy piece to or from some quarter that is not 
served by the cranes. It is of advantage to be able to 
do this even if the floor is cluttered up with other 
pieces which are not ready to be moved. Very often 
a heavy casting is moved out of the way to make 
room for another one along the aisles between the 
machine-tools. Sometimes it is necessary to instal a 
new machine in the place of an old one while the 



284 



SHOP KINKS AND 



floor is pretty well covered with work or machines ; 
and then it is, whether the shop has railways down 



/ s 





A 



±1 



m 



e 



Q=* 



Figs. 



-Temporary Hoisting-Device. 



:84, 185 and 186.- 

the aisles or not, when it is desirable to be able to 
handle the heavy pieces from above instead of along 
the floor level. This is often the case in shops where 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 285 

there is a big central traveling crane serving a long 
" nave " bounded by galleries on each side, which it 
cannot reach and is not ordinarily supposed to 
reach, even through railways or by trucks. 

It would seem a simple matter to rig up a tem- 
porary overhead single railway, but very often tools 
are moved to right or left, and work not yet ready to 
remove is taken away in order to permit the pieces to 
be handled on the floor level. 

Figures 184, 185, 186, show a rig that takes few 
men to put up and take down, and by means of which 
quite heavy castings, forgings, or other pieces, may be 
lifted clear above everything on the floor and got out 
of the way. We assume that the shop has posts or 
columns supporting its roof or a story above, and that 
an iron I-beam is available. In this case all that is 
necessary is to lash the beam to the columns as shown, 
and having straddled it with a flanged wheel of spool 
shape, sling from this last the hoisting-apparatus, 
whether it be a regular differential gear or an ordin- 
ary double block and tackle. The load may be lifted 
clear and run along as far as the end of the rail on the 
next post, and if it is necessary to run it at right 
angles, it may then be shifted to a similar tackle on 
a similar beam placed across the first, and its other 
end either resting on a parallel beam or lashed at and 
to another post ; forming in this case an obtuse angle 
with the first beam. 

This spool or flanged wheel may have, in order to 
save friction, a plain length of shafting of small diam- 
eter passing through it and bearing on each end a 
sleeve of iron tubing, bored inside to fit it and turned 
outside to receive eyes from which depend the upper 
block of the tackle. 



286 SHOP KINKS AND 

If there is any question about the strength of the 
lashings, they may be supplemented by plain shores 
of ordinary timbers, and placed vertically or nearly 
so, alongside of the columns. 

With two sets of tackle-blocks a load may be trans- 
ferred from almost any column in the shop to almost 
any other ; one hoist taking it from the other. Thus 
in one figure it is carried in one straight line along a 
row of columns while in another it is switched off 
to a line of columns at right angles with that along 
which it first started. 

As to Hoisting=Ropes. So you have broken that 
hoisting- rope. Well, the only wonder is that it did 
not break sooner. You use too small sheaves. Every 
rope has some stiffness ; any rope of large diameter 
drawn over a pulley of small diameter must stretch 
along its outer edge (if the word edge may be used) 
and be compressed along its inside edge ; and there 
must be friction between the core and the inside and 
outside fibres. The chafing between the rope and the 
sheave is only a part of the friction that goes to wear 
out the rope. If the internal strands or core were 
black-leaded, the casing- fibres would slip on them and 
there would be less of the internal cutting. The 
original strength of the rope would not be increased, 
in fact might be slightly diminished by the plumbago 
overcoming the friction which alone holds the particles 
of the rope together in spinning ; but the general re- 
sult would be desirable. Such rope is used with suc- 
cess in large coal-hoisting and conveying plants. 

Annealing Crane=Chains. Don't wait for one of 
your crane-chains to break while there is a heavy load 
on, and let a piece of work drop and be ruined, or 
kill or maim some one. The first thing that you do 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 



287 



with a chain should be to anneal it, unless you are 
definitely certain that it has been annealed by the 
maker. Then from time to time anneal it again. 
Just heat it hot, and let it cool slowly ; that is all 
there is to do. 

Fastening Hoisting=Ropes to Hooks. Being in a 
shop not long ago when a load fell by reason of being 
improperly secured to the hook, I have thought that 
it might be well to show the proper way of making 
fast in such a manner as to get not only speed in 




Fig. 187. — Blackwall Hitch. 

making fast and in letting go, but absolute security 
as far as slip of the rope is concerned. 

Any ' * sailor man ' ' will tell you that the proper 
way of making fast in such case is by a " Blackwall 
hitch." This is made by laying the end of the rope 
across the hollow part of the hook, (say from right 
to left) then taking the u standing part " (that is, 



288 



SHOP KINKS AND 



not the free end) back over the neck of the hook (say 
from left to right) and bringing it down in the hollow 
of the hook (say from right to left) over the " free n 
part or end. 

In making this hitch, the loop is not to be brought 
down into the hollow of the hook, but kept well up 
on the neck as, shown in Figure 187. 




Fig. 188.— Bill Hitch. 

While at it, I may as well say that the best form 
of hook with which I am acquainted is that shown 
here, which is of a kind that does not open out read- 
ily under strain, as so many hooks do ; nor is it apt 
to break in the curve when a load is suddenly brought 
upon it, as may be the case when using chain, by 
reason of a link getting suddenly unkinked. This is 
the form laid down by the Yale & Towne Co. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 289 

To make a u bill hitch," which may be considered 
as slightly more secure than the u Blackwall," pro- 
ceed just as for the u Blackwall " passing the free end 
of the rope along one side of the hook (say to the left) 
then around back of the neck (say from right to left) 
then bring it in front of the ' 'bill' ' (as from left to right) 
and pass it under, between rope and hook ; all as 
shown in Figure 188. Or go about it the other way to ; 
pass the free end under the standing part, from left to 
right, making a loop with the ends to the right ; slip 
this over the bill and the neck of the hook, (beyond 
the bill) so as to let the standing part pass into the 
throat to the left, and the free end lie to the right. 

Splicing Wire Rope for an Eye. Where you want 






Fig. 189. — Splicing Eyes Into Wire Ropes. 

to splice an ordinary wire rope for an eye, so that 
it will be as strong in the splice as in any other 



290 



SHOP KINKS AND 



part, it will be well to follow Admiral Luce's 
directions, using a stout thimble in the eye and carry- 
ing the end of the rope back about twelve feet along 
the main part. The two parts of the rope are then 
lashed together, first with what are called "racking 
lashings n A ) which alternately pass over and under 
the parts, forming a sort of figure 8. After you 
have done this for the whole length of which the end 
has been turned up, put on several short lashings (7(7. 
The upper part of the illustration, Figure 189, shows 
how the racking lashings are put on. When they 
have been put on the full length, the lashings B are 
carried straight around for the whole distance. 

Securing Brick Veneers. Several methods have 
been proposed and used for securing brick veneers to 




Fig. 190. — Securing Brick Veneers. 

the frame ; some of them are expensive, some ineffi- 
cient, some unsightly, and some, two or even all of 
these. Here is one that I am using on my new office 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 291 

front. The binders or hold-fasts are lengths of stout 
galvanized iron or steel telegraph-wire (plenty of which 
is lying about the street or to be had for a mere song 
or even for the asking) a little longer than twice the 
width of the uprights plus one width of the brick. 
These pieces are bent into U form, using a piece of 
the upright stuff as a former and seeing that the bends 
are square and snug. The free ends are slightly 
twisted, and hammered flat in the plane of the U. 
They are used as shown in Figure 190, passing about 
the uprights and lying between the courses of the 
brick-work. 

It may be added as a sort of after- thought, that in 
picking up wire from the street it is well to see that 
both ends are in sight, as, in these days of electricity, 
many an inoffensive-looking wire proves to be " live. " 

Pattern=Room Ceiling. In an article descriptive of 
the shops of a certain railway company in New York 
State I read in connection with the pattern-room ' ' the 
inside of this room is ceiled with waste matched pine 
and varnished, giving it a very neat and clean appear- 
ance, besides making it a very warm place in winter. ' ' 

Before putting a varnished pine ceiling in your pat- 
tern-shop, or your office either for that matter, ask 
your insurance man about it. Next get the opinion 
of the chief of the fire department. Then maybe you 
will select some other kind of a ceiling. Perhaps you 
have been to a few fires yourself and know how warm 
one of these ceilings can get either in summer or in 
winter, if the conditions are favorable. 

For my part I would rather have the joists show 
and be kalsomined to give light in the room, than to 
coat them over with a fire-trap sheathing of varnished 
pine which would diminish the hight of the room. 



292 SHOP KINKS AND 

Floor-Timbers in High Buildings. I saw a nice 
wreck not long ago ; a city machine-shop that had 
been through a fire — or rather the fire had been 
through it. The whole shop was in the cellar. It 
had seemed a stiff enough floor, but there lacked one 
precaution that is very seldom taken with high build- 
ings : so supporting the timbers of the floor that, in 
case they break or fall, they shall not pry the wall 
over inward, and that in case they expand they will 
not push it over outward. As ordinarily constructed, 
and as was the case here, holes are left in the walls, 
into which the ends of the joists set ; the holes being 
about the size of the ends of the joists, so that in case 
the floor falls the timbers are apt to tumble the wall 
inward on the contents of the building. 

There are two ways of getting around this. One 
is to set the end of the joist upon a corbel or projec- 
tion from the face of the wall, so that the joist clears 
the face of the wall entirely, and in case it falls it ex- 
erts no influence upon the wall. The other method 
has the same object in view, and accomplishes it in a 
simpler way. The holes made to receive the joists are 
made about twice as high as the joists, so that in fall- 
ing the joist has no prying effect upon the wall. 
These remarks apply to iron as well as wooden beams ; 
but for iron beams there should be observed the addi- 
tional precaution to leave a greater space between the 
end of the beam and the wall, so that the inevitable 
expansion of the beam from fire shall cause no thrust 
outwards, tending to overthrow the walls. It would 
perhaps be as well if all external walls were held to- 
gether by anchor bolts with external plates, which, 
although not very sightly, yet often tend to hold the 
wall up when otherwise it would topple and fall out- 



MA CHINE SHOP CHA T. 293 

wards. Of course, if the beams are properly cased 
below with some fire-proof material or by some heat- 
proof method, their expansion will be very much less 
than if they are left naked to the action of the 
heat. 

Floors and Joists. I see that my neighbor's new 
shop floor has a ' ' bagged ' ' appearance already. Few 
floors are stout enough and stiff enough to remain level 
more than a few months at most after being laid. 
They will sag between supports, so that even a sixteen- 
foot room which will permit of a marble being laid near 
the washboard without its rolling. to ward the center is 
a rarity. The sag in most ordinary dwelling-houses 
soon amounts to one- fourth inch, and often reaches 
one-half inch. Putting the beams close together, or 
using thicker beams, does not seem to improve the 
matter much, and deepening them is rarely admis- 
sible, because people want all the headroom that they 
can get, and begrudge every inch of joist- depth. 
Besides this, increasing either the number or the 
thickness or the depth of joists costs money. But 
there is a way by which a level floor may be had 
without greatly increasing the timber bill, and that 
is by cambering all the joists from one-fourth to one- 
half inch, and starting with a floor rather higher in 
the middle than at the two sides at which the joists 
end. An upward camber of one-half inch in sixteen 
feet of a ten-inch joist, the eamber being measured 
with the joist lying on its side, will become only 
about one-fourth inch when the joist is in place, 
without the flooring being laid. The weight of the 
latter will at once sag it until it is very nearly level, 
leaving for time and the weight of the furniture to 
relieve, not any more than — perhaps not so much as 



294 



SHOP KINKS AND 



— the sag which would have been in the new floor if 
the joists had been sawed straight. 

"Strengthening" Floors. One of the very best 
ways to learn how to do things right is to note how 
they have been done wrong. Notes of bad practice 
are danger-posts which tend to keep us in the middle 
of the road and not let us stray into the marshes and 
pitfalls on either side. 

One of the most marked examples of how not to 
do it may be seen (no, it may not be seen, it is cov- 
ered up) in one of the largest, finest and most impos- 
ing and expensive hotels in New York City. It was 
found or thought, after about $1,000,000 had been 




Figs. 191 and 192. — " Strengthening " Floors. 

spent on the structure, that the floors were too weak ; 
and of course they had to be strengthened before the 
building could be finished or used. As at first con- 
structed, they were of the ordinary type, made of I- 
beams having flat composition arches sprung in 
between them. 

The conditions were such that the floors could not 
be ripped out ; but of course they could be strength- 
ened by any one of several different methods. They 
might be trussed from below, or shored up by more 
columns ; or some of them might be held up by sus- 
pension rods from above. But none of these ways 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 295 

seemed to suit the architect. The highly original 
plan which he adopted is shown in Figure 192, in 
which it will be seen that he simply laid down on 
each I-beam an inverted deck-beam, which he bolted 
fast to the I-beam by its flanges ; then he sprung an 
arch of corrugated iron between each pair of these 
deck-beams, and leveled the whole thing off with 
concrete, on which the floor-boards, or the tiling, as 
the case might be, were laid. 

This method of strengthening arches beats all 
hollow the scheme of lightening the load on the horse 
that was carrying a man in the saddle and a small 
boy 011 the crupper, by the man taking the small boy 
in his arms. 

A Good Shop Floor. About as good a shop floor or 
yard pavement as you can put in for such a place is 
made of cedar blocks say six inches long, and of the 
diameter of the tree — four to eight inches. Ram 
down some ashes so that they will be level, then put 
your cedar blocks on them, close together, and fill up 
between them with a grouting of asphalt and gravel 
or asphalt and sharp sand. Wagon- wheels won't 
" phaze n such a floor or pavement. 

You may also make a good shop floor by tamping 
down first gravel and then sand, and rolling well with 
a heavy roller ; next laying down inch boards that 
have both sides coated with heavy tar, and then other 
boards crosswise of these. 

Light Floors. That printing-press runs hard be- 
cause the floor is too light, and after the owner had 
got this press running all right he put alongside of it 
another one which sprung the floor and twisted this 
one. You will have to level it up ; although the 
probabilities are that after you have done so, the first 



296 SHOP KINKS AND 

time lie puts down a big stack' of paper alongside of the 
new press, the floor will sag again. The best way is 
to shore up the floor from below, or if that is not con- 
venient, to run a big beam across above there, and 
hang the middle of the floor to it by a stout iron rod 
with a big washer and two good bridge-nuts at each 
end. 

A New Wrinkle in Car=Shops is to dig a long pit 
and lay in it a track to hold three or four cars, their 
floors coming about the level of the shop floor. 

Shop=Lighting. There is a "dim religious light" 
over in the north-west corner of your shop, and it 
seems to me that it takes the men about seven times 
as long to make an adjustment or to read a measure- 
ment as in the corner diagonally opposite. Your 
pattern-shop wall comes close to the window in the 
dark corner, and you have outside a wire screen, that 
was put on years ago before the pattern-shop was built, 
to keep boys from breaking the windows. Inside that 
wire screen there is a coating of grime and dirt that is 
just as old as the pattern-shop — about five years, if I 
remember rightly. If you will take down the screen 
(which is of no use) , that will give you a trifle more 
light and give you a chance to send a man outside 
with a hose and a brush and wash down the windows, 
and then if you will send another out with a bucket 
of whitewash, a wide brush, and suitable instructions 
to brighten up both the walls that face each other in 
that manner, you will have light reflected into the 
shop, and the men will be able to see whether a thing 
is eleven-thirty-seconds or three-eighths. In this 
country, at least, sunlight costs practically nothing ; 
why not use it and plenty of it, particularly when your 
men want it and are losing time for lack of it ? If there 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 297 

comes in too much for their eyesight they can put up 
a temporary sheet of brown paper ; but I guess that 
in that particular geographical corner, and as long as 
the pattern-shop stands there, there will not be any 
blinking, especially of afternoons. 

Shop Windows. It would seem that a window 6 
by 3 \ feet would give about the same amount of light 
through, back of it, whether it was high up or low 
down ; but such is not the case. By a well-known 
law of optics, " the angle of incidence is equal to the 
angle of reflection, n so that light which strikes on 
the ceiling from a low-down window reaches the floor 
near the wall in which the window is placed ; while a 
window of the same size, higher up, will allow the 
rays to reach farther back on the floor. This is but 
a trifle, but as Michael Angelo said, " trifles make 
perfection. " 

Where to Put Shop Lights, There are shops where 
the men cannot do so much work with arc lights 
hung up far above them as they could with an ordi- 
nary oil lamp or stub-end of a candle. The reason is 
that the arc light does two things — it casts dark 
shadows, and it blinds the eyes of the men by being 
too concentrated. It is much better to get the same 
amount of light nearer the work, even at the much 
greater cost per candle-power of the incandescent light. 
I say " per candle-power, " for while a 1,000-candle- 
power arc light may not cost more than one-half to 
one-third horse-power to maintain, 1,000 candle- 
power of incandescent light (say sixty 16- candle 
lamps) cannot be got for less than six-horse-power, 
and usually takes nine. But the fact of having such 
light right down at the work enables better work to 
be done where the same light is given, or enables 



298 SHOP KINKS AND 

much less candle-power to suffice ; for it is a well- 
known rule of lighting that one candle-power one 
foot from the work is equal to four at a distance of 
two feet, sixteen at a distance of four feet, and so on. 

Cool Water for Shops. The temperature of the 
earth below the top ten or twelve feet seldom varies 
very much, particularly where the surface is covered 
with a building, so as to prevent the sun heating and 
the winds cooling it. Taking advantage of this fact, 
one may at no very great expense make the drinking- 
water of any shop much cooler in summer than it is 
apt to be without such measures being taken. A 
trench is dug as narrow as possible, and as deep as 
may be convenient, running the entire length of the 
cellar. In this there is laid an iron pipe u coil," as 
a zigzag or alternate run is generally called, the pipe 
being at least double the capacity of the service-line 
of the house. Upright lines are run from this above- 
ground for connection with the street mains and with 
the service-pipes, and the trench then filled in. When 
the connections are made, the water from the street 
(warmed as it generally is by exposure to the sun's 
rays in a shallow reservoir, and often not improved 
by its passage through shallow-laid mains) has to 
make several turns through the earth-cooled coil be- 
fore it reaches the service-pipe. The same effect may 
be produced, where well-digging or boring apparatus 
are at hand, by sinking a vertical cooling- pipe of 
several turns in a well of small diameter, and then 
filling in the well. 

Shapley and his Shaft. Shapley had a leading- 
shaft that he had been trying for about ten years to 
convince himself was heavy enough for the power 
which he had been putting through it ; and after all 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 299 

these years of wabbling about from one side of the 
question to the other, he came to the conclusion that 
it must go. So he ripped out the three-inch shaft 
and put in a four. It cost him considerable money 
and took a good deal of time ; and of course the earn- 
ings of the shop during that time very much lessened. 
And after all that, fancy his feelings when one of his 
sons came back from college and said to him : ' ' Why, 
pop, that's rather a fool job that you have been pay- 
ing for! Why didn't you just turn the old line 
around a little faster and alter the pulleys at each end ? 
You don't take any power off the line between the 
ends, and as it is, both the old shaft and the new 
one have been speeded too slow for the machinery at 
the end furthest from the engine." 

Shapley feels something like the man who had 
been winding up a clock every day for twenty years 
and then found out that it was a twenty- eight- day 
clock. But perhaps there are more Shapleys in this 
great country of ours. 

Jack=Shaft Stands. Some people seem to think 
that any kind of a floor-stand is good enough for a 
jack-shaft ; whereas it should get all that is rigid, ad- 
justable, self- oiling and convenient. The jack-shaft 
gets hard work and plenty of it, usually heavy belt- 
ing and high speeds, and gets more work than an- 
other part of the system, first because all the power 
goes through it ; and second, because it is always in 
motion so long as there is anything to be turned. 
The stand should be rigid both laterally and fore-and- 
aft ; it should have an adjustable pillow-block with 
self-oiling bearings and both lateral and vertical ad- 
justment. With such stands there need be no trouble 



300 SHOP KINKS AND 

if the bearings are of proper dimensions and material 
and the lubrication is suitable. 

Lining up Shafting. In lining up shafting the 
problem is to get the line not only straight but level. 
A line may as a general thing be straight, without be- 
ing level : that is, a center-line drawn through the 
whole system might pass through the exact center of 
every section and yet one end might be higher than 
the other. It might be level without being straight; 
thus each section might have kinks in it, or the whole 
line might be bowed in a horizontal plane; yet it might 
all show up perfectly level by any system tried. 

There are two ways by which the level of a line may 
be found ; and if not level, by which it may be made 
so. One is by the water or spirit-level, and the other 
by the plumb-line. 

Whatever method be employed it must be available 
for every kind of a line that one is liable to find ; that 
is, those which have great distances between hangers, 
and those which are very much interrupted by them. 

At present I shall show a few ways by which the 
plumb -bob is used. We shall have to assume that we 
believe or rather know certainly that a level line or 
plane is at right angles to a vertical line or plane ; and 
that a plumb-line is a certain method by which to 
ascertain the verticality of anything already erected, 
or by which to erect or adjust anything absolutely 
vertical. 

Referring to Figure 193, in which S is a line of 
shafting presumed to be already erected as nearly level 
as the eye can tell, and Hone of the hangers, we have 
here a device by which the line on both sides of the 
hangers may be leveled at once ; and of course, the 
same appliance may be and should be set up between 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 

r 



301 






J 


,? 








Q Q 






1 


f 


^B 


"\^ 


= -©-- 





' ^-j— =^==f~ ->;- 




















Figs. 193 to 196. — Lining up Shafting. 



3 o2 SHOP KINKS AND 

hangers. A and B are two pieces of board each of 
which has a lengthwise center-line scribed thereon ; 
and has also portions cut away so as to leave notched 
pieces, truly centered, and both alike, by which these 
may be hung from the shaft. These notches are made 
correct by the two pieces being screwed together and 
of a truly-centered hole with a diameter within two 
inches of the width of the boards made through both 
at once. Then tangents are drawn to the sides of 
the hole, at equal angles with the center-line, and the 
stuff is cut away so as to present the appearance 
shown in the end view Figure 193. The longer A 
is, the better ; B may be about two feet. Brace- 
pieces 0, D and E are then made, and E is first at- 
tached so as to be as nearly as possible square with 
both A and B y which two should then be parallel. 
One screw is at each of the joints F and G. Then 
C is attached to B by one screw at K ; then it is at- 
tached to A at B by one screw, after A and B have 
been brought absolutely square with E. This being 
done, one screw is put at each of the places M , i\ r 
and ; a distance-piece as thick as brace E being re- 
quired at M. When the frame is thus pinned together, 
it should be absolutely rigid, and the squareness of 
the working-edge of A (that shown to the left) with 
the upper or working-edge of E should be well tested. 
This being done, if the system is hung on the shaft 
as shown in Figure 193, a plumb-line suspended along 
the working-edge of A will show this edge to be 
absolutely vertical if the shaft is absolutely level. It 
is well to check the accuracy of this, (1) by sliding 
the device along the shaft from one end to the other, 
skipping the hangers and couplings when they are 
encountered, and then (2) running it along the line 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 3°3 

in the same way, the other way to ; that is, with 
the working-edge towards the other end of the shaft. 

To make the plumb-bob come to rest more quickly 
than it otherwise would, it may be allowed to hang 
in a bucket of water. A may be strengthened where 
cut away, by a reinforcing-strip R. 

A variation of this device is shown in Figure 195, 
in which A is a piece of four-by-four- inch scantling, 
along which a lengthwise center-line has been scribed, 
top and bottom, and in which an angular groove has 
been cut, truly parallel with these center-lines. This 
work may be done on an ordinary patternmaker's 
saw-bench. Then a piece B with one perfectly 
straight working-edge is screwed to A absolutely at 
right angles to the top and bottom edges of A . A 
brace-piece C extends from A to B ; and the plumb- 
line is hung along the working-edge of B as shown 
in Figure 195. 

Instead of having long heavy pieces of scantling, 
say six feet long, as shown in Figure 195, a two-foot 
piece may be scribed, grooved and then sawed across 
in two, and the two pieces joined in true parallel by 
a lengthwise piece D ; then the piece B is made square 
with the joined grooved pieces and the brace C put 
in to keep them stiff. If necessary, another brace E 
may be screwed between A and C. (See Figure 196.) 

All three of these devices may be unscrewed so as 
to make them take up less room in storage ; but be- 
fore doing this, all the parts should be marked, and 
the screws should be coated with a mixture of graph- 
ite and tallow and tied up in a paper that is fastened 
to one of the pieces. Then all the pieces should be 
fastened together. 

Any one of these three rigs may be used with a 



304 SHOP KINKS AND 

level to check the accuracy of the plumb-line, if 
desired. 

The second and third styles cannot straddle hangers 
very well ; but the third one can be made to do so by 
a slight modification as shown in Figure 194; and 
where a hanger is of an especially difficult pat- 
tern to ' ( get true ' ' the connecting-piece may be at- 
tached to one of the grooved pieces by thumb-screws 
at Q Q. 

Barbarous Shaft=Couplings. They had a sad acci- 
dent over the way, and one that might just as well 
have been here, for all the precautions you have taken 
to prevent the very same thing happening. A man 
was fixing a belt-shifter; his sleeve caught in a 
flange coupling, and his arm was torn out of its socket 
before help could get to him. He will die, of course. 
Every one of those nuts which sticks out from a plate 
coupling invites accident. I don't see why people 
will hold on to such barbarisms. Considered as coup- 
lings they are not a success. They are big, heavy 
and expensive, take time to put up and time to take 
down ; and half the time when you try to take them 
down you find that they have rusted together. If a 
belt gets thrown off a pulley, and its edge strikes one 
of them, it is ruined. If it is a rubber belt, that is the 
end of it ; you can't even cut it down and make a nar- 
rower one out of it. And in case of some poor devil's 
sleeve — or what is worse, some poor girl's hair — get- 
ting caught, there is a horrible accident which no mere 
money can measure, for which no mere money can pay. 
If people will put up such abominations, they should 
be compelled to case them in, or to have them so con- 
structed that there are no projecting parts like bolt- 
ends. Any one who has ever used a compression- 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 305 

coupling knows how much more handy it is than the 
other- — that is, if you get the kind that can be taken 
down as readily as it is put up. Some of them are easy 
to screw up and difficult to take off ; they are like 
lobsters, that are said not to let go until it thunders 
or until the sun goes down. 

PuIIey=Balancing. If some one were to put a heavy 
eccentric on one of your shafts and let it hang with 
one big side and one little one, you would not like 
the effect that it produced ; you would complain that 
the motion was wearing on one side of the shaft, and 
that it made the machinery run unevenly. But 
while you may not have anything that really sticks 
out farther on one side than the other, in the way of 
an eccentric, you have on your shaft there a pulley 
that is jarring things and wearing the journals on 
one side — a big pulley that is very much out of 
balance. I suppose that somebody, when he put up 
that pulley, or before he put it up, gave it what is 
mis-called ' ( standing balance ' ' ; which is about the 
kind of a balance that the tight-rope walker has when 
he is lying in bed sleeping — a very safe balance under 
the circumstances, but not worth a continental for 
purposes of tight- rope walking. Standing balance is 
of no more use to a running pulley than a life-pre- 
server in some one's store on Broadway would be to 
a man who fell overboard in mid -ocean. 

But if I had a dollar for every pulley running in 
this country — or even in the city of New York — on 
standing balance only, I would be rich enough to 
make some very decent Christmas presents. What a 
pulley wants — or rather needs — is running balance. 
It should be tested when it is running, in the position 
in which it is run, and at the speed at which it is to 



306 



SHOP KINKS AND 



run. Then if it lias any eccentricities of size or 
weight they will develop and may be corrected before 
it is put to work shaking buildings. 

Some so-called mechanics think that, when they 
have run a mandrel through a pulley and let it roll 





^ 



ttZP 



A, □ . 


^ ^J 





Figs. 197 to 200. — Pulley-Balancing. 

about a bit on two straight-edges placed on trestles, 
they have got a perfect balance when they have 
reached that condition, by adding weights or boring 
holes, in which the pulley will lie indifferently 
with any side up. As a matter of fact, such bal- 
ancing may make things worse than before, when the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 307 

pulley is running (and most pulleys are meant to be 
used running) . 

We will suppose a pulley such as that shown in 
Figure 197, where there is an excess of weight at A, 
over in one edge. Of course when put on the 
straight-edges it tends to hang with the A side down. 

Any fool knows that the AB side, taken as a whole, 
is heavier than the CD side, directly opposite. And any 
fool knows that if weight enough was added anywhere 
along the CD side, or if weight w T as taken from the 
AB side, the pulley would stand with AB up as well 
as with AB down. Well, we will suppose that we 
add weight enough at I), diagonally across from A , 
to make the pulley stand with A B up just as willing- 
ly as with AB down. Now put that pulley on a 
shaft and run it fast. The tendency of the weight 
at A is to fly tangentially from the pulley, and so 
long as it can not fly off so, to cause a radial strain 
in a direction from the axis to the circumference. 
The heavy point A tends to get as far as possible 
from the central line ; and it can do this only by 
twisting the pulley in the direction of the arrow A, 
Figure 198. But the point D being extra heavy tends 
to bring a strain on the shaft in the direction of the 
arrow JD, Figure 198. If that don't tend to bend a 
shaft then I know nothing of mechanics. 

Suppose that instead of adding weight at Z), diag- 
onally opposite to A, a piece of the proper weight had 
been taken out at B, on the heavy side but on the 
opposite edge from A. That would also give a good 
standing balance ; but its only effect when the pulley 
was running would be to intensify the twisting action 
of- A. 

But suppose that instead of adding weight at 2), 



3 o8 



SHOP KINKS AND 



diagonally opposite A, it be added in sufficient amount 
(just the same amount as would be necessary at D) 
at C\ diametrically opposite A. It would of course 
give proper standing balance ; and when the pulley 
was running at high speed it would tend to throw the 
pulley in the direction of the arrow (7, Figure 199, or 
to bend the shaft exactly in the opposite direction from 
that in which the weight at A tended to bend it ; and 
the balance thus obtained could be perfect. 

The best results will be got if instead of running 
the pulley on a horizontal shaft it be balanced on a 
cock-head as shown in Figure 200, in the manner of a 
millstone ; the pivot being at its absolute center of 
bulk ; that is, not only in the actual line but in the 
plane that divides it in two at right angles to the shaft. 

These same remarks apply to balancing fly-wheels, 
millstones, etc. , as well as to ordinary driving-pulleys. 

Hanging up a Clutch Pulley. In these days of 
high-speed shafting there is needed a frictional clutch 




Fig. 201.— Hanging up a Clutch Pulley. 

wheel that may be set loose or connected with the 
shaft. Where a machine is used about once a week 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



309 



for an Hour, and the loose pulley is wearing the shaft 
all the rest of the time, there seems to be an unnec- 
essary percentage of waste of friction. To do away 
with this there has been devised an arrangement 
having a counterpoise hung from the overhead floor- 
beams, to be attached to the pulley when it is brought 
to rest, so as to take the strain from the shaft. As 
the tendency of the belt-pull and the pulley- weight is 
to exert a force in the direction shown by the line A 
in Figure 201, the remedy is to apply an equal 
and opposite force to the wheel by a lever and counter- 
weight B. 

Loose Pulleys as ordinarily made without any 
flanges are apt to cut the edges of the belt. The best 
form is that which I first saw about 1876 ; the loose 
pulley being very much smaller than the ' ' tight ' ' 
one out having a beveled flange leading up to the 
same diameter as that of the latter. The belt runs 




Fig. 202. — Common Sense Loose Pulley. (Craft.) 

on this quietly, and with but little tension ; and but 
very slight motion of the shipper is necessary to 
cause it to climb the beveled flange. 



3io 



SHOP KINKS AND 



A less desirable form lias, instead of the beveled 
flange, one at right angles to the face of the loose 
pulley, and of the same diameter as that of the 
tight one. 

Keying Pulleys on Shafts. Over in England an 
American mechanic who has established a big shop 
near Manchester has got up a new way of keying 
pulleys and such things on shafts. Instead of mak- 
ing a shallow groove in the shaft, parallel with its 
length, and one in the pulley-hub to correspond, and 
putting in a key* that runs lengthwise of the shaft, 




Fig. 203. — Keying Pulleys on Shafts. 



he cotters deeply into the shaft, making a narrow 
groove with rounded ends, that runs lengthwise of 
the shaft; and making a similar deep cotter-cut 
through the hub, he puts in a flat steel key with 
rounded edges at right-angles to the shaft. He has 
a machine which makes such cotter-grooves of several 
standard sizes, and another one which makes the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 311 

keys of standard sections and cuts them off to con- 
venient lengths ; so that all that is required to do is 
to mark on the drawings " No. 5 Key," or whatever 
size it is. Then the work of cottering can be done 
without any special instructions, and the key can be 
taken out of stock in the same manner as wire nails 
are. 

A Split Pulley by all means. Do you want to have 
to stop the whole shop every time you want to change 
a pulley ? How else are you going to back out that 
long line of shafting, loaded up with solid pulleys ? 
Don't you know that a large split pulley can be put 
up with less labor and in shorter time than a solid one ? 

Too Much Adjustability. There can be such a thing 
as too much adjustability. There are many cases 
where it is very useful to have a means of taking up 
wear or lost motion ; but if such a means is open to 
the objection that when a part is once brought into its 
proper place it cannot be kept there, the adjustability 
may be a cause of damage instead of saving and con- 
venience. For example — we have the hangers of tight 
and loose pulleys. In order to enable the excess of 
wear of the boxes in one end over that in the other 
to be taken up, such hangers are often made with 
slotted palms ; but there is nothing easier than for the 
pulley of the belt (usually excessive) to draw the 
hanger around just on the very end where wear is 
likely to occur anyhow, so that, unless such hangers 
have a means of fastening them when once aligned, 
they will slew around and give trouble. If the makers 
have not done this for you, you will have to do it for 
yourself by drilling a small hole through which to pass 
a bolt, lag-screw or other locking-device. If the 
hangers are already up, and trouble is found with their 



312 



SHOP KINKS AND 



slewing, then a chock of hard wood may be screwed 
on the timbers so as to receive the thrust of the palm 
and keep it in place. 

Why Most Planer=Belts do not Last Long. One 

reason is that their edges are spoiled by the constant 
action of the shifter ; and the same may be said of 
many other belts which are shifted by the ordinary 
pole or by even a regular shifter. To lessen the wear 




Fig. 204. — Planer-Belt Shifter. 



and tear and prolong the life of the belt, make the 
shifter to bear against the edges of the belt by grooved 
rollers or wheels instead of by a bare edge ; the wheels 
of rollers will rotate and be easy on the belt-edges. 

Belt=5hifter. For a belt- shifter which will always 
be in place and will cost little or nothing, the rig 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT 



3i3 



shown in Figure 205 may be recommended. Its up- 
per end has a slightly hooked point which may be in- 
serted in any one of several holes having a distance 
between centers equal to that between pulley-faces, 




Fig. 205.— Belt-Shifter. 

where there is a stepped pulley. According to which 
pulley the belt is on, this hook is inserted in the 
proper hole. 

BeIt=Handler. The device shown in Figure 206 is 
handy for putting a belt on a pulley without danger 
or inconvenience. Any one who has reached out 
for a belt with an ordinary pole (the ones which are 
at hand usually seem to have rounded ends so that 
their hold of a belt is reduced to a minimum) knows 
how many trials are often necessary before a running 
belt that has been thrown off can be lifted from the 



314 



SHOP KINKS AND 



shaft and got to remain on the pulley so as to drive 
it. One's strength is not exerted to advantage 
under such circumstances, and one's temper is surely 
tried to its utmost. If the belt is somewhat tight and 
its motion rather rapid, the difficulty is increased. 




Fig. 206. — Belt-Handler. 

The contrivance shown here is an English idea for 
the good working of which I can vouch, having 
made, used, and sold such shifters in this country. 
The wheel ^4, with a spike in its center, rotates easily 
in a journal on the socket B which fits on a pole C. 

A Combined Belt=Shifter and Brake for such ma- 
chines as vertical jig-saws has a brake so fastened to 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 315 

the lever of the belt-shifter, as to rub against the flat 
side of the fast pulley, after it has thrown off the belt. 

Transmission by Gearing. It is not enough that 
the teeth of a pair of gear-wheels simply seize hold of 
each other, and that the pressure from one set forces 
the other set around. This action must be smooth 
and regular, and not by fits and starts ; ought to be 
practically noiseless ; should be accompanied by a 
minimum of wear, and not occasion crowding apart 
of the wheels, which would cause great axial friction; 
this last being co- existent with wear of journals and 
bearings, waste of lubricants and loss of power. And 
under average circumstances every gear of a given 
pitch should mesh properly with every other of the 
same pitch, from rack to pinions as low as twelve teeth. 

A Wrinkle About Gear=WheeIs. You complain that 
your gear-wheels wear irregularly. That is very 
largely owing to the fact that the number of teeth in 
one is a multiple of that in the other. Every so many 
turns, the same pair of teeth come together. It hap- 
pens that some of the teeth are harder than others ; 
and every so many turns you have a hard tooth wear- 
ing against a soft one. Now, if the teeth were "prime' ' 
to each other, as for instance eighteen and nineteen, 
or eighteen and thirty-one, or any other pairs of num- 
bers which had no common divisor, you would find 
that they would last longer ; and in this case there is 
no more need for having eighteen to thirty than 
eighteen to thirty- one. 

Diametral vs. Circular Pitch. Replying to the ques- 
tion as to whether the pitch of gearing should be 
diametral or circular, one large Eastern machine- 
tool builder says : ' ' We see no reason why a pro- 
posed standard should exclude either diametral or 



316 SHOP KINKS AND 

circular methods. The diametral pitches, 16, 12, 10, 
8, 6, 5, and 4 per inch, afford all needed variety by 
a suitable progression. They are exceedingly con- 
venient as regards shop measurement, and (what is 
more to the purpose and a result of the preceding) 
they are in universal use, and will assuredly be used, 
whether recognized by any standard authority or not. 

' ' The diametral pitches intermediate to the above 
are not needed for variety, or, at least very rarely, 
and introduce to the workman awkward and unac- 
customed fractions, while larger pitches in suitable 
progression by the diametral plan are increasingly 
open to the same objection, and the convenience of 
the system disappears. 

11 Were we now to adopt for ourselves a system of 
pitches they would almost certainly be diametral to 
four per inch, using the numbers above, and circular 
for larger pitches, by eighths from | inches to if 
inches or 2-inch pitch (inclusive), and by quarters 
above 2 in 2 hes." 

The Nordyke & Mormon Co. thinks that for cast 
gearing, such as for mill- work, etc., the circular pitch 
is best, and suggests that the progression should 
be by J-inch in advance from \ to ij-inch, then by 
J-inch advance to 2}-inch pitch, then by J-inch 
advance. 

Cut vs. Cast Gears. In reference to the compara- 
tive advantages of cut versus cast gears, I may say 
in favor of the former that the teeth being much more 
correct and regular in outline and more uniform in 
size, with less back-lash or play, they run much more 
steadily and smoothly, and with less friction than 
uncut gears do. There being no draft, the wheel 
has no ' ' right and left ' ' as with pattern-molded 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 317 

wheels. But there is this to be said for the uncut, 
that the skin of the casting remains intact, and the 
material is more resistant to wear than if the softer 
material were exposed. 

In the matter of large cast gears, those which are 
machine-molded should have the preference over 
those cast from a whole pattern, because the teeth 
can be made more carefully, and molded more per- 
fectly ; the draft being less and there being no twist- 
ing of the pattern. Of course, after the index 
machine and appliances are provided, the machine- 
molded gear is much the cheaper to produce. The 
draft is but slight, which is an advantage, 

Overloaded Gears. Gears are more apt to be over- 
loaded than belts are, because they will not slip as 
belts will, and will either break or cut out. 

Strength of Gear=Teeth. The thickness of teeth at 
the pitch-circle may be considered as an average of 
the thickness at the root. Where wheels have 
straight flanks (generally owing to the fewness of 
teeth) the thickness at the root is less than at the 
pitch-circle. In most other cases it is greater. In 
calculating the thickness and breadth of teeth, there 
must be considered not only the question of the 
strength of the teeth, but their resistance to wear by 
abrasion resulting from sliding friction. 

The faster wheels run, and the more suddenly they 
are started, stopped or reversed, the higher should be 
the factor of safety. 

Dimensions of Gear=Teeth for a Given Power. It 
will very probably be impossible to establish any gen- 
eral rule for the proportions of gears to transmit a 
given horse-power, because the horse-power transmit- 
ted seldom gives us any knowledge of the greatest 



318 SHOP KINKS AND 

strain to which the gearing is liable. Belts relieve 
themselves by slipping and stretching ; shafts by 
twisting and springing ; gears by breaking. Bements 
consider it safe to apply at the pitch-line of good cast- 
iron gearing a strain in ponnds equal to 1,000 p 2 to 
i,200jA This supposes ordinarily favorable circum- 
stances, and a face width of about 3 pitches. 

There are cases where a greater strain is safe, and 
others quite the reverse. Perhaps the best way on this 
subject is to treat every important case on its own 
merits. 

Proportions of Gear=Teeth. These vary according 
to the purpose for which the gears are intended, and 
the materials of which they are made, and are to a 
certain extent independent of the tooth outline. The 
pitch being 1, the depth to pitch-line may be 3-10, 
working depth 6-10, whole depth 7-10, thickness 5-1 1, 
breadth of space 6-1 1. (Willis.) One English pro- 
portion is : pitch 100, depth 75, working depth 70, 
clearance 5, thickness 45, space 55, play 10, inside 
pitch-line 40, outside 35. 

The manufacture of gear- cutters (not gear-cutting 
machines) by one or two large firms has done and is 
doing much to unify the practice as to outlines, and 
dimensions of cut gears. The cutters of these firms 
are exactly alike in these particulars, except a differ- 
ence in bottom clearance, so trifling as to be of no 
consequence, and the same proportions would be best 
adhered to for teeth of circular as for diametral pitch. 
For the former the working depth would be 0.64 the 
pitch (correctly 0.63662), and the bottom clearance 
0.5 p. In the matter of width of face of cut gearing, 
probably no standard would be possible or necessary, 
as it is so often dependent upon circumstances. Three 



MACHIXE SHOP CHAT. 319 

times the pitch is, however, by many considered a very 
satisfactory width. 

Small teeth require proportionately more clearance 
at the root than large ones. 

In order to reduce to a minimum the cutting of a 
shoulder in the flanks of epicycloid teeth, D. K. Clark 
recommends, if the flanks have excessive taper, thin- 
ning the teeth for a distance of half the hight of the 
flank, measured from the root ; stating that the work- 
ing durability of the tooth is much increased, and 
steadiness of action promoted even when the tooth has 
become much worn. 

Gear=Tooth Outlines for General Adoption. If we 
are going to have a gear-tooth outline which shall be 
understood to be the standard and be by law so recom- 
mended and adopted, it would be well to consult all 
the great builders and designers of machinery. To a 
certain extent I have done this in days gone by. 

Special Gears. While there should be standards of 
gearing to which it will be understood that any maker 
will cast or cut gears when ordered without any spe- 
cific directions, yet it is well to remember that for 
special cases it is best to use special gears, just as for 




Figs. 207 and 208. (Fred. J. Miller.) 

special purposes particular non-standard screw-threads 
may be desirable. Where a machine is needed for a 
purpose calling for but little power, but in which fric- 
tion should be eliminated to as great an extent as pos- 
sible, it will be well to follow the suggestion of Mr. 



320 SHOP KINKS AND 

Fred. J. Miller and use an epicycloid tooth the curves 
of which are generated by a rolling-circle of greater 
diameter than the pitch-radius of the wheels, thus 
getting a tooth-outline about like that shown in Fig- 
ure 207 — not a pretty tooth, and not a strong one, but 
rolling easily with its mates. But where very strong 
teeth are needed, and especially if the pinion is of 
comparatively small diameter, the rolling-circle may 
have a diameter smaller than the pitch-radius, produc- 
ing such a tooth, for instance, as is shown in Figure 
208. 

To Lay off Teeth for a Sprocket=Wheel of any diam- 
eter, where you have the chain already, first find the 
distance between links of the chain ; this will deter- 
mine the pitch of the teeth of the wheel, and this 
pitch of course must be constant for every wheel with 
which the chain must work. Note the number of 
teeth that any one wheel must have ; multiply the 
pitch of the chain by that number and divide by 
3.1416 (unless you have a tape-measure which is 
graduated into units of 3.1416 inches in length, these 
units being marked 1, 2, 3, etc., to show the diam- 
eters in inches of bodies about which the tape-meas- 
ure is passed). Lay down a circle of this diameter,, 
which diameter will be the pitch-diameter or working- 
diameter of the wheel, measured at a distance half the 
thickness of the links from the bottoms of the teeth. 
Draw a circle smaller than the pitch-circle, by the 
diameter of the links ; then there will be between it 
and the pitch- circle a space equal to half the link- 
diameter. Step off either of these circles into as 
many equal parts as required for the number of teeth . 
About the points of division on the pitch-circle, as 
centers, draw circles having a diameter equal to that 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 321 

of the chain ; then between but not cutting these 
circles you may lay out the teeth, with as great a 
spread as will give strength at the base, but without 
making them so pointed as not to get a good grip on 
the links. 

This rule assumes what is ordinarily the case, that 
the links will curve slightly to conform to the pitch- 
circle. 

Spur=Gear Blanks. There are still many machin- 
ists and millwrights who learned, as I did, the old- 
fashioned ' * circular pitch ' ' for gear-wheels ; and 
many of these may be, as I was for some time, both- 
ered about coming over to the ' ' diametral pitch ' ' 
system now so largely adopted. For some of these, 
and for those who have come here from other coun- 
tries and are still thinking in the old systems, I may 
say that the diametral pitch of any gear is the 
number of teeth that it has to each inch of diameter 
on the pitch -circle, and that the blanks are always of 
the same denomination as the pitch ; thus an ' ' eight- 
pitch ' ' gear must be a certain number of even eighths 
of an inch in diameter ; a * ' six-pitch ' ' gear always 

certain even number of sixths of an inch, and so on. 

To find the outside diameter of the blanks for spur 
gears, add two parts of the pitch to the diameter of 
the pitch-circle. Thus for an eight- pitch spur gear 
of thirty teeth, the outside diameter of the blank is 
32 eighths or four inches ; for a ten-pitch gear of 
forty teeth the outside diameter of the blank is 42- 
tenths=4-2 inches. 

To get the distance between the centers of two 
gears, add together the number of teeth and divide 
the sum by double the diametral pitch. Thus if there 
is a 48-tooth and a 3 6- tooth spur gear working 



322 



SHOP KINKS AND 



together, both being five-pitch, 48 plus 36 equals 84 ; 
this divided by twice 5 equals 8.4 inches, the distance 
between centers. 

Planing Bevel=Gear Teeth. Milling bevel-gear teeth 
is an absurdity if one expects to get teeth that will 
mesh together without heating, rattling or backlash. 
Any cutter that has the right profile for the back end 
of the teeth — that is, the large part of the wheel — 
would not of course leave tooth enough at the other 
end. On the other hand, a cutter that is right for the 
small end would be of no use for the large, as it would 
only make an approximation to the proper outline, 
to do as some do, run through twice, once for each 
side. For such wheels, in the first place, the ordinary 




Fig. 209. — Planing Gear-Teeth. (Bilgram.) 

involute and epicycloidal tooth outlines are almost 
impossible to get up even at the greatest expense ; 
and in the second place with ordinary machines and 
ordinary workmen they are not feasible. The system 
that works best for bevel- wheels (including both miter- 
wheels proper, or those with forty-five-degree angle, 
and other bevel- wheels, having different face-angle) 
is one in which, instead of the pinion of twelve to 
fifteen teeth, the rack is the "master" with which 
all others of the system will roll. With the ordinary 
standard gears, such as those of Pratt & Whitney and 
Brown & Sharpe, all wheels of a system will gear 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 323 

properly with the master-pinion of fifteen teeth and 
consequently will mesh properly with each other ; 
and in the Willis system the master- wheel is a pinion 
of twelve teeth, which is the pinion of the smallest 
number of teeth that can be cut and leave any strength 
in the tooth-flanks. 

Going to the opposite extreme we find that we can 
employ as a master-wheel one having an infinite 
number of teeth — that wheel being, to make an Irish 
bull, a rack ; and all wheels of a system that will 
gear properly with the rack will gear properly with 
each other. 

Now the rack itself, or one of its teeth, may be 
used as a cutter for all spur-wheels or gear-wheels of 
the system ; and Figure 209 shows how the teeth of 
an involute rack would cut its way through a rolling 
blank, forming one of the spaces of the teeth. (The 
dotted line represents the pitch-circle.) 

Now if you have a tool representing one tooth of a 
rack, and having a reciprocating motion while the 
wheel-blank is given a rolling motion, we may make 
bevel-gears which will mesh properly together. As 
the involute tooth is the only one which will mesh 
properly at varying pitch-diameters, the involute rack 
tooth, which has straight sides, is the only one avail- 
able for this purpose. In using it the tool must not 
run parallel with the pitch-cone, but with the bottom 
of the space. In the Bilgram shops, Philadelphia, 
all bevel- wheels are cut on this system, on a special 
machine consisting of a u shaper " with an attach- 
ment for holding the blank and giving it not only 
intermittent rotation to suit the desired number of 
teeth, but a rolling motion like that of a conical 
pendulum ; and I have seen bevel-gears, made on 



324 SHOP KINKS AND 

such a machine, consisting of a set of 12, 18, and 24 
teeth respectively, all meshing with one of 36 teeth. 
Of course the axis of the 12 -tooth bevel pinion was 
much nearer to the face of the 3 6- tooth wheel than 
that of the 18- tooth pinion, while that of the 2 4- tooth 
pinion was farther away. This would be a case 
practically impossible to make on any other system ; 
but here it is done ; the tool automatically easing 
away just enough of the backs or back ends of the 
teeth on the 12-tooth pinion, and just enough on the 
small ends of the 24, to make perfect rolling contact. 
By the same system, inclined-teeth wheels (not skew 
wheels, where the axes do not come together if pro- 
longed) may be made, giving continuous contact as 
with the ' ' herring-bone gears ' ' used in rubber-mills 
(and not enough used in other work) to insure that 
there is always one tooth in full mesh. 

False Teeth for Spur=Gears. It often happens that 
by reason of its being too weak, or having the load 
brought on it diagonally instead of squarely, or of 
something getting in the way, a tooth will break out 
of a large spur-gear ; and the smaller the diameter of 
the wheel with reference to the pitch, the more trouble 
this will make in driving, especially if it is the 
driven gear. But it is not always necessary to put in 
a new section of rim, even where provision has been 
made for this. You may put in a false tooth that 
will be even better than the original, by making a 
tin template of one of the others (allowing the proper 
amount for what has been worn off, if you wish and feel 
competent) , and on its bottom marking off a dove- 
tail. Make a wrought-iron tooth to this template ; 
slot out the rim with a portable key-seating machine, 
or if you have not this, chip it out; then fasten the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 325 

tootli in place by two or more bolts or studs from trie 
back, or by studs from the end of the tooth. 

Instead of a wrought- iron tooth, one of gun-metal 
may be used — and by u gun-metal " I mean either 
"8to 1 " copper and tin, or what is known in South 
Boston and in Pittsburgh as gun-metal — namely, an 
excellent quality of cast iron such as was used for 
making ' ' Parrott ' ' and ' ' Columbia ' ' guns. 

Grinding Cast Gears Together. There is a much- 
maligned animal called the jackass. Whenever any 
one does anything that is not just right, or which 
some one else thinks is not just right, he gets called 
a jackass ; whereas in many cases it is a libel on the 
four-footed animal. It would be so in the case of the 
so-called machinist who grinds his cast gears together 
to make them run smoothly. In order to do the 
thing about as badly as possible, he uses emery or 
corundum to help the grinding along. The result is 
that if the teeth ever had any regular shape, or any 
form at all, other than might be made by getting the 
print of the ball of the thumb — that shape is all gone. 
The action of the gears may be smooth enough as 
regards absence of noise, and as regards freedom from 
hard running ; but if you will set together a train of 
several such gears and see that the first of them is 
turned slowly, one tooth at a time, with regular veloc- 
ity, you will find that the last one goes by fits and 
starts, according to just what parts of the teeth are in 
gear ; and the smaller the pinions in comparison with 
the spurs, the greater the irregularity of motion. 
In addition to this, you cannot grind cast-iron sur- 
faces together with emery or corundum without some 
of the abrasive getting bedded into the metal, there 
to remain acting as in a lap, cutting and scoring its 



326 SHOP KINKS AND 

way into the opposing surface and thus producing a 
heating worse, if possible, than the mere roughnesses 
that were considered objectionable. 

Not that rough gear-teeth are to be praised or even 
countenanced ; but the best way to do is to get them 
smooth, regular, and of proper outline at first, by mak- 
ing proper drawings and having proper patterns ; by 
taking care in rapping the patterns when making the 
mold, and by being careful to use the proper metal 
and to pour it rightly. Then the tooth- curves will 
be such as to ensure regular action, and the surfaces 
will be such as to run smoothly; while the skin of the 
castings, which is the best part of them, will not be 
taken off before the wheels are put to work. 

A better way than to make patterns of large wheels 
is to make a good template and make the mold by a 
gear-molding machine, with a good index-plate and 
stiff radius-bar. 

Wooden " Core=Wheels " sometimes give trouble 
by the keys becoming loose and letting the cogs rise 
in the mortise, breaking the gear. Core- wheels 
cogged with dry material have been known to burst 
by the swelling of the cogs in their mortises. 

Raw=Hide Gears. Many years ago it was well 
known among millwrights that raw-hide was one of 
the most desirable things in existence, and that gears 
made of it would outlast most metal and all wooden 
ones. Since the introduction of electric street-cars, 
there has been a demand for something that would 
be more durable than bronze, cast or wrought iron, 
or even than steel, and that would not howl as metal 
ones do under the high speeds requisite for street-car 
motors. Here raw-hide gears come in with special 
advantage; not only wearing longer themselves than 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 327 

metal ones, but prolonging the life of the large metal 
gears with which they mesh. They require no lubri- 
cation — in fact are better without it than with it ; 
and they greatly reduce vibration. On electric-motor 
shafts this is of special advantage, as it makes the 
armature-wires last longer. Steer hides are the best 
for this purpose, and the butts are the best parts. 

Testing Gear=Teeth. In all machine-shops that 
are specially rigged for cutting gear-teeth on modern 
principles, there is provision for measuring the teeth 
with compound vernier calipers especially constructed 
for this work, and enabling the measuring of the 
distance from the top of the tooth to the pitch -line 
within one- one- thousandth of an inch, at the same 
time measuring the exact thickness at the pitch- line. 
In the Leland & Faulconer shops there is a spur- 
gear tester which carries two studs that are exactly 
perpendicular to the bed of the machine, and is pro- 
vided with a vernier which enables the testing of the 
"gear at precisely the correct center-distance. Their 
bevel-gear tester has two spindles exactly perpendic- 
ular to each other, and the center-lines of which are 
in the same plane. 

Figuring Gear=Teeth. The way that Lee figured 
up the number of teeth in a wheel which he needed, 
to cut a screw of one-and-one-half- inch pitch , with a 
compound-geared lathe, was not by figuring, because 
every one who figured on the job told him a different 
number ; but he put on the gear to cut one-inch 
pitch ; took up all lost motion, marked the carriage 
and face-plate, put a two-foot rule with one end on 
the floor and the other on the third change of wheels, 
made a scribe-mark above the rule, went to the face- 
plate and moved it until the carriage had moved one 



328 SHOP KINKS AND 

and one-half inches on the bed, went back to the 
gearing, made a second scribe-mark on the same 
wheel, and noted the number of teeth in the wheel 
between the scribe-marks. Then he told the fore- 
man that he must have a wheel made, with twenty- 
five teeth instead of twenty-eight. It was ordered 
and made, and when put in place made the worm 
with one and one-half inches pitch. 

All of which shows that some men have ideas in 
their heads. 

Rules for Laying Out Gearing. To determine the stress 
per-tooth of a cast-iron spur-wheel transmitting a given 
horse-power. Multiply the number of horse-power by 
129,050, and divide the product by the diameter in 
inches, times the number of turns per minute. 

To determine the pitch and breadth of face of a cast-iron 
spur-wheel transmitting a given horse-power. Divide the 
stress on a tooth, in pounds, by the number of pounds 
strain per inch breadth of face. 

Shown in the following table : 

Pitch, inches K % % 5 A Va % 

Pounds stress per inch breadth of face. 20 30 40 50 60 70 

Pitch 1 iK t-Vz i?4 2 2K 

Pounds. ... 80^ ioo>2 120% 141 161 181 

Pitch 2 2% 3 3 3 3 4 

Pounds — 201 221% 241% 261 1-16 281% 302 322 

This gives the breadth of face in inches . The figures 
of permissible strain are low, but are based on average 
shocks, and are suitable for oblique strains. 

To get the exact radius of a pitch-circle, in inches. Find 
the exact radius, nearest to the approximate radius, 
that with the given pitch will evenly divide the pitch- 
circle. The number of teeth will be equal to 6.2832 
times the assumed radius, in inches, divided by the 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 329 

circular pitch, in inches. Taking the nearest whole 
number to this quotient, the exact radius, in inches, 
will be equal to the product of this by the pitch, divi- 
ded by 6.2832. 

Troublesome Bearings. Sometimes there conies 
back to the shop a bearing that will heat, no matter 
how much oil it gets. It is strange, but true, that in 
such cases relief will very often be got by simply chang- 
ing the bearing- metal. If it is a brass bearing that 
heats, a babbitt bearing will often work all right, and 
this with no discredit to the brass, because it is very 
often just the other way about ; the brass may run cool 
where the babbitt will melt out. No one as yet can 
tell just why this is in any one instance ; there are 
about seventeen different things that go to make up 
the reason, or the set of reasons, why the thing will not 
run cool. Just put it down to "the nature of the 
beast," and try something else. I have known apple- 
wood to run cool where babbitt and brass both failed ; 
and vice versa. 

Cool-Running Bearing. After all, about the best 
bearing for a circular-saw arbor or anything like that, 
which gets bad usage and plenty of it, is the rind of 
salt pork. That will help you out of the difficulty, 
in nine cases out of ten ; but when you have time and 
opportunity, you should put in something more sub- 
stantial and workmanlike. 

" Self=Oiling " Bearings. Do not place too much 
(that is, entire) dependence on self-oiling bearings. 
While their use is to be recommended, it is to be re- 
membered that there is no device of either human or 
Divine design and construction that is not liable to 
give out at some time or other ; and luck usually 
brings the times of failure just when they will cause 



33o SHOP KINKS AND 

the most inconvenience or loss. A safety-valve is 
supposed to be a self-acting device to prevent boiler 
explosions, but none the less is it practically im- 
perative that it be tested daily to see that it lifts 
easily ; and in the same way with a self-oiling bear- 
ing ; it should be given frequent and careful inspec- 
tion to see that some one has not neglected it or 
tampered with it, or that it has not for some reason 
or other (or no reason at all) stopped working or 
commenced to work imperfectly. This is particularly 
so on crosshead bearings ; they are especially liable 
to get out of kilter, and when they do they take less 
time to seize and give less warning than almost any 
other kind. 

A very simple type of ( ' self- oiling ' ' bearings 
may be made by providing in the cup a recess 
formed by a circumferential groove, in which there 
is placed an endless rope or chain that dips in the oil 
receptacle below and is turned by the motion of the 
shaft. The faster the shaft turns, the faster the oil 
is brought up. 

Cast=Iron Bearings. When you get right down to 
it there are many things to be said in favor of cast 
iron working on cast iron, and wrought iron on cast 
iron. In how many shops do you see wrought-iron 
shafting running in ordinary unbabbitted cast-iron 
bearings, and doing it day in and day out for years 
without any trouble, as long as they are only decently 
lubricated ? Take a Sellers planer. Here is a cast- 
iron worm working in a cast-iron rack. The only 
special precaution which is taken in this case is that 
the worm is not cut by the use of the lead-screw, but 
a standard former is used ; both the former and the 
worm being on the same mandrel, and the nut which 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 331 

gears into the former being fast to trie carriage which, 
carries the tool for chasing. This makes it certain 
that the worm will be as correct as the former ; 
and if the former is properly cnt the worm must 
be right. 

Ball Bearings. In olden days wherever there was 
a rotating piece, it turned on cylindrical journals or 
gudgeons ; usually short and thick. With some ad- 
vance in the science and art of mechanics, cylindrical 
bearings became longer and longer, thus lessening the 
pressure per square inch which tended to squeeze the 
lubricant out from between the bearing-surfaces. A 
further development was in the nature of anti-friction 
rollers ; and for a long time the homely and primitive 
grindstone was away ahead of the best other grades of 
machines in having these. The use of the cone-center 
for certain classes of horizontal rotating-pieces, as in 
lathes, was a great step ; and both the lathe and grind- 
stone were examples of advanced, although no further 
advancing, practice. 

The anti-friction roller was an advance in that it 
substituted rolling for sliding friction in carrying most 
of the load ; the sliding friction being only that of the 
journals of the rollers instead of that of the main jour- 
nal. The cone-centers were examples of relying on 
hard and perfectly-formed bearing-surfaces instead of 
on large areas. 

The ball bearing is, to a certain extent, a combina- 
tion of the two ; employing harder bearing- surfaces 
than could be practical with any other system, and 
substituting rolling for sliding friction. It is time that 
ball bearings or their kin, freely-running roller-bear- 
ings, were more used in large machinery. Their com- 
plete success in bicycle construction should shame 



332 SHOP KINKS AND 

mechanics who are engaged in what they term heavy 
standard work. 

Recent improvements, such as electric welding, and 
ball-rolling machinery, enable turning out steel balls 
of great hardness and smoothness to a very close ap- 
proximation to perfection in sphericity ; and improved 
grinding machinery enables bringing them to a still 
higher degree of perfection in shape and surface. Im- 
proved grinding machinery also enables the produc- 
tion of grooves of either V or semi-circular section, 
with a high degree of correctness in the circumferential 
direction, and of surface ; so that there are now at 
hand materials formerly lacking, and which invite 
the designer and builder to use them with credit to 
himself and satisfaction and profit to the purchaser of 
the machines using improved bearings. 

Ball=and=Socket Bearings. The less you have to do 
with a ball-and-socket bearing the better you will like 
it. When both the ball and the socket wear, they 
wear to different radii ; and then there is no adjust- 
ment which you can make, give or maintain, which 
will produce a full bearing between the two surfaces. 
Theoretically, the contact will be but a single point. 
Practically, it may be several pinching- places. In 
either case it will be no good. 

Turbine Steps. Turbine steps often make a good 
deal of trouble by giving way just when least expected 
and most troublesome. Outside of the question of 
stopping the mill and of cost of replacing the steps 
themselves, often there is damage done by stripping 
bevel- wheel teeth, especially where they are of wood 
in mortised iron rims. 

Of course, if these steps were all right, and every- 
thing else was all right, they would not burn out or 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



333 



otherwise give way ; but the main thing is not 
merely to know this — which is practically self- 
evident — but to note just what the causes are and 
how to prevent such happenings. 

The principal causes of steps burning out are im- 
proper material and design of the steps themselves, 
foundation and setting of the wheels, penstocks and 
draft tubes ; defective lubrication in the case of those 




Fig. 210. — Anti-Friction Turbine Step. 



that are not exposed to the water, and lack of care in 
keeping things generally lined up. 

As to material : lignum vitse is that usually chosen ; 
but all is not equally good, and some pieces are 
harder on one side than on the other. If one side is 
more durable than another it must be expected that 
the softer side will give way first ; then there will no 
longer be a good wearing-surface and the steps will 



334 SHOP KINKS AND 

give way. Boiling the wood in oil improves it in 
every way. 

Very often the shape of the step is such that the 
outer part of it gets more wear than the inner ; both 
the toe and the step going faster towards the circum- 
ference than at the center. There is a form of bear- 
ing known as Schiele's anti-friction bearing, which is 
used by some builders of machine-tools and in which 
the pressure per square inch on the circumference, 
where the speed is higher than at the center, is less 
than at the center. This principle might be em- 
ployed with advantage for turbine steps. Some years 
ago I proposed such a step-bearing and illustrated it 
in the American Miller, I think ; but the one that I 
proposed was duplex — that is, there was one such 
bearing rotating in another one of the same character, 
so that if either of them should cease the other would 
take up the rotation. This would also lessen the 
comparative rotation- speed. See Figure 210. 

In many cases a large proportion of the weight of 
the wheel could be taken by a collar on the shaft, 
above the wheel, and running on ball bearings; 
reserving the step as a means only of insuring perfect 
centrality and verticality of the shaft. 

But in the wheel-pit itself and the foundation and 
setting there is more affecting the wear of- the step 
than almost anywhere else. Of course, if the step is 
under water all the time it will not burn out so fast as 
if there is an air-pocket formed, as is sometimes the 
case where there is a draft-tube ; but under water or 
not, if the foundation goes down on one side, the step 
will get unequal wear and will go. The use of a 
plumb and level about the wheel will show whether 
or not the latter is out of plumb ; but the wheel may 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 335 

be plumb enough and the foundation under the pen- 
stock may get down on one side locally, bringing the 
step and the concave together on one side more than 
on another, and soon cutting out the bearing. 

Where the structure is on a gravel bottom (and 
still more the case where it is on sand) there is 
danger lest it be washed away ; and planking should 
be put under the whole business, of large enough 
area to prevent the water getting under and having 
any washing tendency. Of course, quicksand is worse 
than sharp sand in this connection, for that not only 
washes away easily, but runs with the slightest prov- 
ocation, on the addition or removal of weight from 
its neighborhood. 

An excellent foundation may be made of piles driven 
to the rock or hard-pan, filled in between with broken 
stone, the spaces between these poured with coarse 
grout, and the tops of the piles (which should, of 
course, be sawed off level if very uneven) well planked 
over; or if the tops of the piles are not very uneven, 
coarse grout may be poured in to fill up to the level 
of the highest top, and then the planks may be laid 
down. When the grout is well set the penstock may 
be put up ; and it is just as well that attention be paid 
to have full, even, plentiful discharge for the water, 
below the penstock and above the platform, so that 
there shall be no erosive tendency. The wider the 
tail-race the less the liability (other things being equal) 
to cut away under the platform and lower the step. 
The greater the velocity of the water as it leaves the 
wheel, the greater the necessity of having full area of 
discharge away from the structure ; for although the 
water at the higher velocity will flow away more read- 
ily and with a smaller area of discharge, it is this rapid 



336 SHOP KINKS AND 

flow that it is desirable to counteract ; and the flow 
should not be faster than one hundred feet a minute — 
requiring about a square foot of sectional area for 
eighty cubic feet of water or so, per minute. 

Where steps are not submerged, graphite will be 
found to be a good lubricant ; it should be introduced 
before the wheel is put in, and then the greater the 
pressure on it, the smoother it gets. 

Until after the first spring following the setting of 
the wheel, the structure, wheel, shaft, etc., should be 
carefully tested with plumb and level from time to 
time, to be sure that it is not settling. If then it be 
found that there is no settling, it may be assumed that 
things will run along without much trouble from this 
cause ; but none the less there will be demand for a 
proper step. 

To Prevent a Foot-Step From Welding, let it run 
in an oil-box and drill a hole diagonally from the cir- 
cumference to the center of the spindle, to let oil run 
out as explained by the so-called centrifugal force ; 
then have radial channels in the bearing-plate to let 
oil run in from the receptacle surrounding both. 
This will keep a current of oil going from the bottom 
of the reservoir to the center of the contacting plane, 
and from there still upwards (but outwards instead of 
inwards), from the contacting plane to the circumfer- 
ence of the spindle. 

Where much trouble is given with turbine foot- 
steps welding, it may usually be remedied by weld- 
ing on the lower end of the shaft a disk having its 
central portion recessed, and letting this bear on a 
large plate. The central recess serves as an oil- 
space. Excess of size of the plate makes too rapid 
frictional speed. There should be curved grooves 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 337 

like millstone furrows, and the oil should be fed into 
the plate from below. 

OiUSaving. There is too much oil used ; and aside 
from that which is used there is far too much wasted. 
By this distinction I mean that there is a certain 
amount that is absolutely necessary in order to keep 
the bearing-surfaces cool and free from cutting. This 
quantity varies with the material, dimensions, design 
and condition of the bearing- surfaces, and consisting 
properly of oil that is used, and which cannot be 
cut down by any degree of knowledge, skill or ex- 
perience on the part of the engine-runner. Then 
over and above this there is a certain amount that is 
wasted by reason of the fault of the engine- runner, 
by irregular or excessive lubrication, or by the habit 
of slushing up at one time and letting run almost dry 
at another. The proof of this is that when premiums 
are offered for oil-savinp- on railways the amount is 
brought down and kept down, while trains niake the 
same mileage and time, the bearing-surfaces are 
kept in just as good condition and the fuel required 
is no greater, in some cases is even less. Such a con- 
dition of affairs having been brought about by full 
knowledge and care on the part of some one engine- 
runner or several, the threat of discharge in case the 
oil-consumption is not brought down to a certain 
maximum by those who have no incentive to saving 
or who don't appreciate the incentive enough to work 
for it results in the general consumption being 
lowered and kept low. 

A good deal of the oil that is wasted is just thrown 
away by being squirted about and put anywhere 
except where it is needed ; also allowed to leak 
from supply-cans. 



338 SHOP KINKS AND 

Once the average amount required for certain en- 
gines, grades of service, and runs having been deter- 
mined, by experiment, it may be kept there by al- 
lowing each class of engine a certain maximum 
supply for a given run and cutting the size of the 
supply-cans down to that, with a slight margin for 
emergencies, while making the daily supply just the 
average consumption without any such emergency 
allowance. If the engine-runner or the fireman is 
allowed to draw his own supply for each day or run, it 
will usually be found that he will take more than he 
could get along with if it was measured and furnished 
by some one in charge of the oil. 

If hand and feed-cans are allowed to get leaky or 
broken, and the ends of long spouts are let get 
battered out of shape or enlarged by breakage of the 
tips, the oil-consumption will be increased. 

It will be found that a small amount regularly ap- 
plied will keep bearing-surfaces from getting heated, 
while if they are let get hot it will take more than the 
amount saved to get them cool again, or to enable 
them to run without seizing. Then if, instead of run- 
ning cool without a certain amount of oil they merely 
run without seizing, there will be more friction ; the 
engine will " haul hard, " and the coal-consumption 
will be greater — to say nothing of the life of the bear- 
ings themselves. The same thing applies to rate of 
running ; the man who jogs along at a regular schedule 
rate will require less oil than the one who over-runs 
and then lags back. 

Changing the quality of the oil often results in 
loss, not by reason of the new oil being any worse 
than the old, but because the conditions of tightness 
of fit, etc., with which it works best, are different. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT, 339 

Some oils are limpid, and will work their way in 
between surfaces that are very closely fitted ; others 
may be better, but if they cannot get where they are 
needed, they will not give so good results. 

Some oils will give better results than others at a 
certain speed or pressure, and above that or below 
that they will not do so well. In the same way some 
cylinder-oils are better than others up to a certain 
steam-pressure, and above that they are not so good 
— they "goto pieces," as it were. 

I have even found that some oils will work well 
with dry steam, that will not work with wet, and 
vice versa. 

The engineer who wants to save oil to get maxi- 
mum results should keep his eyes open and have a 
good note-book. 

Wrong Lubricants. Very often a bearing is all 
right in itself, but the lubricant is wrong ; for in- 
stance, good thing that graphite is, as a lubricant — 
none better, take it all in all — it will not flow well 
through oil-holes, even when mixed with thin oil ; 
and sometimes the very cooling of a bearing will cause 
graphite that has been mixed with the oil to clog up in 
the hole, to an extent that is not remedied by the 
heating of the bearing, owing to the stoppage of lubri- 
cant. 

Oiling Pins From One End Only. A special pin in 
a fly-wheel governor of the Straight Line Engine Co. 
has a bearing at each end that requires to be oiled 
from one hole, and that at one end of the pin. The 
annexed illustration shows how that is successfully 
accomplished. The pin is bored very nearly through 
its entire length ; at the far end of the bore there are 
four holes leading to the bearing, and there are also 



34o 



SHOP KINKS AND 



four similar holes near the out end, having similar out- 
let. To insure equal distribution of the oil to both 
sets of holes, there is a smaller concentric tube lead- 
ing from the accessible end and terminating at a point 




Fig. 211. — Oiling Pins From One End Only. 

(Prof. J. E. Sweet.) 

midway in the length of the pin. The oil introduced 
at one end flows to the middle of the large bore-hole, 
and thence goes in both directions to each set of holes. 
Sight Feed. To get just the right amount of feed 
from sight-feed oil-cups, try various amounts until 
you get a trifle more than is necessary, and then 
mark a very fine scratch on the head of the feed-stem. 
That will indicate the right amount for that kind of 
oil. If you change your oil, it may or may not be 
right, according to the viscosity of the oil. 

Floods of Oil. McAdam is mad. Mc Adam's former 
engineer wants a job. The reason is that McAdam 
put in an oil- tank that had a faucet at the bottom, and 
the engineer left the faucet partly open over night, 
so that in the morning there was a small lake of cyl- 
inder-oil on the floor of the engine-room. Jurgensen's 
oil-tank has a little pump so that when the engineer 
wants any oil he has to work for it. Jurgensen don't 
lose oil the way McAdam has done. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 341 

Pumping Gritty Water may be better done with 
leather-faced valves than with those of hard rubber. 
This latter material is all right for clear water, but 
not serviceable where it is muddy and gritty. A sole- 
leather facing may be added temporarily to ordinary 
hard-rubber valves for this purpose. 

Cup=Leathers. The name of the inventor of these 
has escaped me, if I ever knew it; which deprives me 
of the pleasure and privilege of abusing his memory. 
Any one who has had charge of renewing these ingen- 
ious and unsatisfactory devices, or of paying for their 
maintenance, will appreciate this. In nine cases out 
often, hemp packing put in a properly-shaped stuff- 
ing-box and liberally supplied with blacklead (so- 
called) before putting in will do just as well and cost 
much less ; and in the tenth case it would do as well 
and not cost any more, u year in and year out." 

But if you are already rigged out with these expens- 
ive luxuries, and circumstances will not permit a 
change outright, try the way that the Wm. Sellers 
Company introduced for hydraulic accumulators : — 
making the leathers closed instead of open V's ; that 
is, turning in the adjacent edges and stitching to them 
a flat leather ring so as to enclose an area of U shape, 
filling the space with tallow and blacklead (which 
the wise call graphite). Then the greater the press- 
ure, hydraulic or otherwise, the more grease and 
graphite will be squeezed through the pores of the 
leather, and the better the friction will be reduced. 

Ten-Inch Suction Hose. Having occasion to furnish 
in a hurry some ten-inch suction hose with couplings 
(which latter I made in a very novel, cheap, and effect- 
ual manner as related elsewhere), I got a pine log about 
twelve inches in diameter, turned it cylindrically to a 



342 SHOP KINKS AND 

diameter of eleven inches, wound it with No. 4 gal- 
vanized-iron wire, about an inch pitch, and sprung 
this into a heavy sewed duck tube ; delivering it to 
the customer with the caution to be sure that the ends 
of the wire were fastened to the couplings. It seems 
that this injunction was forgotten ; for the day after 
the delivery of the hose and couplings, I got a message 
that the pulsometer was all full of wire. When this 
was with considerable trouble extracted, and new wire 
put into the hose, properly fastened at the ends, there 
was no more trouble. Such hose is so cheaply and 
quickly made that it seems strange that no one else 
has thought of using it, especially for emergency jobs. 
I could sell it at $2.00 per foot and make $1.30 on it, 
when regular rubber suction hose of the same size was 
sold from $5.00 to $8.00, according to quality. 

And by the way, outside of the question of price, 
Purchasing Agent Roop of the North Pennsylvania 
Road told me that he preferred such canvas hose (de- 
void of wire), because there was not so much loss when 
tramps or others stuck their knives through it, as often 
happened. 

American Practicality is a by- word in Europe. I 
don't know that we deserve any credit for it ; it is 
probably born with us just as a taste for music is with 
the Germans. Whenever I have been in Europe I 
have taken delight in showing our trans-Atlantic 
cousins, where possible, how much more practical 
ways we have of doing things than are in vogue over 
there. For instance, I was attending a meeting of a 
noted German society of engineers, of which I am a 
member; and one of my fellow-members, who had 
been connected with the building of the waterworks 
in a foreign city, was drawing on the blackboard, 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 343 

preparatory to reading a paper on the water-supply of 
that city, a map of the surrounding district, with 
canals, aqueducts, etc. In doing this he was making 
the outline of one side of the canals, etc., with an 
ordinary piece of chalk, and then going back and 
drawing the other bank with the same piece, as nearly 
parallel as he could (which was very nearly) and as 
rapidly as he could (which was not very fast) . I 
stepped up and saying " pardon me," cut a nick in 
the chalk and showed him that it would do much 
better work and take much less time to draw both 
of the parallel lines at once. He stood for a moment 
astounded at the simple trick, and then he and several 
others who were standing by ejaculated, " Wie 
praktisch /" (How practical !) — as though almost any 
school-boy in this country would not have done the 
same thing just in that way. 

Ordering Duplicates. If you want those pieces 
duplicated every now and then, don't send drawings 
down to the shops. Send the things themselves. 
The men's calipers will tell them what dimensions to 
give ; there can be no mistake about what metal or 
other material is to be used, nor as to the number of 
each kind of piece to be made ; and better yet, there 
will be uniformity of finish for each part and place. 

An Inspector's Truck. In these days of interchange- 
able parts and of working to thousandths, inspection 
is a very important part of the machine-shop econo- 
my ; and every pains should be taken to make it not 
only thorough in the first place, but inexpensive in 
the second. There are many machines like dynamos, 
machine-tools, and the like, which cannot well be 
brought to the inspector ; so if the mountain will not 
go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. 



34- 



SHOP KINKS AND 



To enable this to be done, with economy of time and 
money, and without cluttering up benches and inter- 
fering with the workman, the truck here shown 
should prove valuable in many shops, as it has before in 
those of the Brown & Sharpe Co. 

There is a desk-like structure having one part, about 
thirty-four inches high, including the casters (which 




Figs. 212 and 213.— Inspector's Truck. (Brown & Sharpe.) 

should be rubber- covered) , and the other as high as is 
convenient for writing. That part to the right is flat ; 
that to the left sloping. The former may be made wider 
by a flap which may be held rigid in a horizontal posi- 
tion by a hinged swinging bracket. There are compart- 
ments for the necessary books and stationery, others for 
small gages and tools; and below, racks for long screw- 
drivers and other pieces which may be more handily 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 345 

kept thus. The illustration is practically self-explan- 
atory, and the idea is commended to dynamo-builders, 
makers of machine-tools, steam-engines, etc., as well 
as to manufacturers of sewing-machines, typewriters, 
and other small delicate machines. 

Electric Annunciator. Where one man has to at- 
tend several tools or to attend one tool and do some- 
thing else while waiting for it to get through its cut, 
it is well to have an electric annunciator to give an 
audible signal just before the cut is through. This 
may be done by having a brass rod pressed by a 
spring against the moving piece or against the car- 
riage, and so placed that, when at a convenient dis- 
tance from the end of the stroke or cut, it shall enter 
between two spring clips of sheet brass which are 
connected to an electric battery and bell, so that on 
the circuit being completed the bell shall be started 
ringing. 

Tool=Lists. Not long ago I made *a profitable visit 
to the world-famous shops of the Brown & Sharpe 
Manufacturing Co., in which for some reasons, and 
in some lines, there was less to learn there than in 
establishments where there is more building and less 
manufacturing. The science of making things in quan- 
tity, exactly alike, of the highest attainable degree 
of perfection, with the greatest capacity of produc- 
tion, and at the lowest cost, consistent with good 
work ; the business of making machine-tools as 
though they were sewing-machines, and milling- 
cutters as though they were buttons — to say nothing 
of the side lines of making sewing-machines by 
the hundred thousand — must of necessity call for 
special devices and systems, from which others may 
learn. 



346 SHOP KINKS AND 

One of the predominant characteristics of this vast 
establishment is the business management which 
pervades every department, so that the visitor, while 
he cannot fail to be impressed with the fact that here 
unrivalled machine- work is done in metal, is equally 
impressed with the other fact that such work is not 
done for love, but must produce a profit — all the 
profit of which it is susceptible. It is the five per 
cent savings here, there, and everywhere that has en- 
abled the concern to lower its price on standard 
machines 50 per cent in ten years, while keeping up 
and even raising the quality of workmanship and the 
quantity of metal. 

One thing struck me — the profusion of both special 
and standard tools and appliances, at the same time 
that all there were in perfect order and condition, 
and none of them thrown one side or laid down care- 
lessly. Down to a cold-chisel, every man is charged 
with each tool that he gets, and charged with it not 
merely as u one cape-chisel," but at a definite price, 
thus impressing him with the idea that it is not 
merely so many ounces of steel, but something cost- 
ing money, worth money, and used for making 
money. This system is so much better than the plan 
employed in many large machine-shops that even the 
very details by which it is carried out should prove 
interesting and profitable. 

The tool-list (copy of which is here given, and 
which is commended to the attention of machine- 
shop proprietors who are not in business for their 
health) enables an accurate account to be kept of just 
what each man gets, returns, spoils or loses. The 
actual size is 3^ x 10^5 inches: 



MACHIXE SHOP CHAT. 



347 



BROWN & SHARPE MFG. CO. 

TOOL LIST. 



Drawer- No.- 



189 



Each workman is provided with a drawer with a lock, and will be held responsible 
for tools, at prices annexed. 





Lathe Board 






" Tools 






Oil Cans 






Bench Brush 






Tin Handle Brush 






Thread Brl>h 






Paint " 






Files 








File Card 

Screw Drivers . 












Hand Tools 






Scrapers 

Center Drills 








" Eeamees 






Vise Clamps 






Cold Chisels 






"Wood Mallet . - .. 








Brass Hammer 

Lead Hammer 






Drawer Key 








Check No 











































Other tools needed can be obtained from the tool-room on leaving a check as 
receipt. 

Tools to be delivered to the owner of the check only, and must be returned as 
soon as possible, that other persons wanting them may not be delaved. 

All damage or loss of tools will be charged to the 'owner of the check, unless such 
damage or loss proves to have been unavoidable. 



348 SHOP KINKS AND 

It is comprehensive without being cumbersome ; 
concise without being indefinite and ineffective. 

I cannot too highly commend the idea of charging 
tools at a price instead of as mere pieces of metal. 

Scraping Fits for Steam=Engine Valves, etc The 
usual way of making a scraping fit is to rub the two 
surfaces together in the same line that they are to 
follow in their movement when assembled in the 
machine, and to scrape away the metal that shows 
bearing ; very thin red lead being rubbed over the 
surface in order that the bearing portions may show 
by being left clean after rubbing. But after this has 
been done several times the pores in the surface get 
filled up so that there is a dirty uniform rust-color 
which makes it difficult to see what parts bear and 
what parts do not. A better testing-material is spirits 
of turpentine, which evaporates rapidly and deposits 
almost instantly a thin visible film, without however 
making an accumulation of dirt. 

How to Straighten that Shaft. It is not a difficult 
matter if you set about it right. That means center 
it properly, having prick-punched it and drilled or 
reamed it properly ; and work the square center well 
while the shaft is turned as fast as you can ; then a 
screw press which traverses the lathe-body is applied ; 
and it should have wedge-blocks that may be brought 
nearly together or further apart at will, and should 
have on the top V's that can be raised. If the crook 
is long, the wedge-blocks are moved further apart ; if 
it is short, then they should be closer together. Turn 
the shaft, and as it turns mark it with chalk every 
three or four inches all along ; then the screw-press 
may be brought into operation. 

After it is made straight, it should be squared true 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 349 

with a side tool ; then the centers reamed again with 
the square center and drilled about an eighth of an 
inch deep with a small drill. 

Etching on Steel. A recent recipe for etching 
brands and marks on polished steel surfaces calls for 
the procuring of a rubber stamp with the required 
design made so that the letters and figures which are 
to be eaten in by the acid shall be depressed in the 
stamp. Any one who starts out to get such a stamp 
will find himself in trouble. He must first go to a 
photo-engraver and get an intaglio (white on black) 
cut, which will cost him even more if the lettering is 
to be plain and regular than if it is not necessary to 
have it perfect. This photo-engraving (which will 
be just the reverse of what he would want for adver- 
tising purposes) he will have to take to the rubber- 
stamp maker. Once obtained, he is to use with it a 
resistant varnish or ink composed of resin and lard 
oil, in the proportions of about sixteen to one in bulk, 
with a little turpentine to thin it, and some lamp- 
black to make it show. The etching-fluid is one 
measure of nitric acid and one of hydrochloric to ten 
of water. 

In order to be able to use the ordinary rubber 
stamps which can be got anywhere without resort to 
a photo-engraver, mix a small amount of gum with 
the acid, so that it will not flow too freely, and apply 
it with the stamp to the surface to be etched, taking 
care to apply the stamp squarely and to lift it away 
squarely. 

For Cutting Steel Bars up to one and one-half 
inches square it will do to cut then on the anvil with a 
sharp cold-chisel from all sides, then laying a small 



35o SHOP KINKS AND 

fuller on the nick and forcing the pieces apart by a 
clean action. 

In Grinding Flange=Joints by hand the effort of put- 
ting on sufficient pressure is considerable and tires the 
workman unnecessarily if he has legs. It is usually 
perfectly feasible to attach to the lap- plate a rope 
with a loop at the free end so that it may be hauled 
on by the foot, and the hands and arms used only for 
rotating the lap. 

To Make Stencils Without Cutting=Tools, mark out 
on tough paper the desired outlines and cut them out 
to correspond with the stencils which are desired to 
be made in metal. L,ay these paper stencils on thin 
sheet zinc ; and with a sponge or swab moistened 
with hydrochloric acid (which some call chlorohy- 
dric, and others call muriatic acid) wet the zinc. 
The acid will very shortly corrode away the zinc so 
that it may be pushed through, and the outlines may 
then be filed smooth. 

Cocking Wing= Valves. If you have wing- valves 
which cock in their seats, try the effect of giving the 
wings a slight taper. They are ordinarily made per- 
fectly straight to prevent cocking, but as they do not 
make a perfect fit, the parallelism does not always 
prevent their cocking ; and those who have tried say 
that with a slight taper they are much less apt to mis- 
behave. 

Brazing Cast Iron. I have just received a note from 
a friend in a distant town, asking me how to braze 
cast iron. I thought that every mechanic knew that. 
It may be done very readily by having the iron clean, 
making it free from grease and acids ; applying a so- 
lution of borax to the surfaces to be joined ; fastening 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT 351 

the parts together, heating in a clear charcoal fire, and 
sprinkling on plenty of powdered borax and brass fil- 
ings ; getting the iron np to a red heat before any of 
the brass melts, yet being carefnl not to let any of the 
iron melt. When the brass runs, the pieces should be 
immediately removed from the fire, the superfluous 
brass wiped off, the pieces cooled slowly, and the joint 
then finished. 

Gasket=Cutting. You are making a botch of that 
rubber gasket-cutting. If you will just wet your 
knife, you will come out better all around — better 
job, less trouble, and sharper knife at the end of the 
work. A little potash and water or soda and water 
would be better than pure water, if it was handy. 

Die=Sinking. Drop-forging has got so much more 
common now than it used to be, and it being often 
inconvenient for those who have dies to make, it 
would be well for every shop to consider the question 
of die- sinking, both as a question of convenience and 
as a matter of economy. 

There are many who have made failures out of a 
few dies and then have given the thing up in despair 
or disgust and send all their orders for dies, after that, 
to those whose regular business it is to do die-sinking 
and nothing else. But this is not wise. Even if it 
be found best to order one's dies regularly of a duly- 
ordained die-sinker, it is wise to know how to make 
one's dies oneself in case the die-sinker should be 
busy, or dead, or in some other way unable to do your 
work for you. The first thing to do should be to 
make a finished model of what you want to have 
forged, and having done it, to make some two-part 
plaster casts of it, to see how it " delivers." There is 
nearlv always some one way in which it may be drawn 



352 SHOP KINKS AND 

better than another; and after the proper parting plane 
has been decided on, it will do to start in to make 
the die. 

Fifteen cents' worth of time spent in making plaster 
casts of the model will sometimes save $15.00 worth 
of time spoiling good metal to make poor dies. 

In many cases — perhaps in most cases — the form 
will admit of being struck up in one operation from 
commercial rod or bar ; and in this case the next step 
after deciding on the parting-plane is to make a tem- 
plate representing the section of the article which 
would be made by that parting-plane. If the model 
is of wood (and it is best that it should be) it can be 
cut through with a very fine saw (the * ' very ' ' being 
spelled with a capital V) right in that plane ; then 
each half of the model will represent in relief (with 
the trifling exception of the discrepancy made by the 
saw-kerf) what the die should be in intaglio or sunken. 
The flat side of the cut of the pattern for the top die 
will serve as a print to mark out on the block for the 
under die, the lines within which to cut, and vice 
versa ; that is, painting part A of the model and ap- 
plying to the block that is to make part B y you will 
have the lines within which to cut ; and painting the 
parting-section of part B of the model and applying 
it to the block in which the die for A is to be cut, 
you will have the outlines within which to work for 
the die of A. 

If the model is of wood it will not hurt it to drill 
holes in it ; and it will be well to draw on the part- 
ing-face of each half, lines a regular distance apart, 
and at right angles with each other, so as to divide the 
parting-side of each half of the pattern into squares. 
Then drilling down with a very fine wood twist-drill 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 353 

from the convex side of each part of the model, per- 
pendicularly to the parting- face, from the most prom- 
inent parts, there will be a number of holes which will 
come out on the parting-face in certain positions with 
respect to each other and to the lines marking the 
squares. These points can be transferred to the ruled- 
off surface of the block ; then drilling down from each 
of these points, to a depth within say one-fiftieth inch 
of the depth of the corresponding hole in the model, 
you will have witness-marks which when you mill in 
or rout out will tell you when it is time to commence 
to cut less boldly. By putting ( ' red stuff " on the 
model and applying it from time to time to the work, 
always cutting in as long as there is any red trans- 
ferred from the model to the excavation, and paying 
attention to the witness-marks, which will tell when 
to commence cutting more carefully, the dies may be 
made the proper reverse of the model, without any 
risk of over cutting. 

This process will result in the formation of the one 
pair of dies necessary to do the work, if it can be done 
with one pair; and if it requires more than one pair, 
by successive forgings (as in the case of work which 
is very much spread) it will give the last pair ; the 
other set or sets being made by the use of common 
sense and experience in the application of the princi- 
ples just laid down. 

Rubber Joints (or " gum " joints as they are called 
in Philadelphia) should before being put together be 
coated with chalk or with graphite (plumbago ; black 
lead), which prevents the gum from sticking to the 
metal, and from being destroyed when the joint is 
taken apart. All gum joints in the water space of 
steam boilers should be coated with lead and tallow 



354 SHOP KINKS AND 

before being put together, thus preventing the sulphui 
of the rubber from attacking the metal and destroying 
ts surface. 

To Test Shellac, dissolve it in absolute alcohol, 
which will dissolve the shellac and leave the impurities. 
Absolute alcohol should indicate iooo upon an alcohol- 
ometer. Pure alcohol will all burn away; that 
which has water in it will leave most of the water 
behind. 

Marking Steel Tools may be done by covering them 
with wax, engraving the marks through the wax down 
to the level of the steel, and then etching with the fol- 
lowing mixture : i ounce of sulphate of copper, i^ 
ounces of alum, }i teaspoonful of salt reduced to pow 
der with one gill of vinegar and 20 drops of nitric acid. 

Rusting of Machine=Tools may be prevented by smear- 
ing the bright parts with a mixture of lard oil and 
kerosene in equal parts. For shipment, a mixture of 
tallow and lime will be found much better and cheaper 
than the usual "smear " of tallow and white-lead. 

Reckoning Tapers. The ordinary way of reckon- 
ing or ordering tapers is so much per foot. This is 
inconvenient, especially as the articles are seldom 
any even number of feet long. It might be better to 
order the taper so much in one-hundred, and this 
could be readily reckoned and laid down by the 
ordinary rule graduated into one-hundredths. 

The one-hundredth rule may also be used for a 
shrink-rule, as iron shrinks about one per cent. 

But there should be a standard taper, no matter how 
reckoned. 

Standard Tapers. One of the principal signs of 
our advancement in mechanics is our adoption of 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



355 



universal or at least general standards for so many 
things — screw-threads, gear- teeth, wire-gages, etc. 
We have not yet, however, quite got to perfection 
and general agreement in the matter of standard 
tapers, as for lathe-centers, arbors, collets, chucks, 
drill-press sockets, milling-machine spindles, and 
tapered parts of metal-working machines gener- 




— H 



Figs. 214 to 216. — " Jarno "and otherTapers. (Brown & Sharpe.) 



ally ; and the multiplicity of tapers before exist- 
ing makes it very hard to get any new one or even 
any old one adopted and used as a general standard. 

I have been looking over the ground pretty 
thoroughly, and think that what is known as the 
' ' Jarno ' ' taper (it being a pretty open secret that 
this originated with Mr. Beale of Providence) 



is 



356 SHOP KINKS AND 

practical in application and easy to remember and 
understand. 

As shown in the annexed illustration, Figure 214, 
the rate of taper is always one in twenty ; the tapers 
are numbered i, 2, 3, etc. ; the number of the taper 
designating the number of tenths of an inch at the 
small end, the number of eighths of an inch at the 
large end, and the number of halves of an inch in 
length. Thus : number 1 is one-tenth inch at the 
small end, one and one-eighth inch at the larger end, 
and one-half inch long ; number 5 is five-tenths inch 
at the small end, and five-eighths inch at the large end, 
and 2>^ inches long. The other tapers, Figures 215 and 
216, are something and a fraction by something else 
and some other fraction ; and their numbers have no 
relation to any of their dimensions or proportions. 

An Item About the Dynamo. Many inventors are 
trying to get out of the dynamo a greater duty than is 
possible. Many others also, failing to see the princi- 
ples on which the machine works, get poorer results 
than they should get. 

If we move a wire in the "field "ofa fixed wire, 
through which a current passes, the moving wire will 
have generated in it a current having an electromotive 
force proportionate to the intensity of the current in 
the fixed wire, to the speed at which the moving wire 
passes through the field, and to the effective length of 
the moving wire. The greater the speed the greater 
the electromotive force. By insufficient rotation-speed, 
or rather insufficient actual speed in feet per minute, 
irrespective of the number of turns per minute, there 
is obtained an electromotive force lower than should 
be possible. In building small machines designers 
are apt to forget that high rotation-speed does not 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



357 



necessarily imply high actual speed in feet per minute ; 
and they expect an armature six inches in diameter, 
at six hundred turns, to produce the same electro- 
motive force as one twelve inches in diameter at the 
same number of turns per minute. They also forget 
that in the small armature there will be fewer feet of 
wire moving. With fewer feet of wire and lower 
speed, it is not possible to get the same result, the in- 
tensity of the current in the fixed wire being the same. 
A Simple Rotary Blower may be made by making a 
stiff light cylindrical drum, A, hung eccentrically 
and giving running (not standing) balance on a cock- 
head, and rotating it in another cylindrical drum, i?, 




Fig. 217. — Simple Rotary Blower. 



as shown in Figure 217; using as a valve a leather 
flap, I". It will not have to be driven at a high 
speed. The arrow shows the required direction of 
rotation. 

Special riachines. The advantage of having special 
machines to do special work where there is much of 



358 SHOP KINKS AND 

that special work to be done (as in manufacturing, as 
distinguished from jobbing or occasional building) 
may be seen by a case cited in the American Machin- 
ist, where a workman, having some holes to make in 
machine steel, started a man at it with the result of a 
hole in five hours, while a Hartford builder of machine- 
tools has a machine guaranteed to make one every 
ten minutes. This is just thirty to one in favor of 
machine- work — if you have enough of the work to be 
done. It would not, however, pay to buy a $290 
machine to do $29 worth of work, and perhaps not 
have another job of the same kind within two years. 

fletal=FinishJng Machine Wanted. There is one 
wood- working tool which might very well be imitated 
in the metal-working line — the sand-papering machine 
having a horizontal arm with from one to two hinge 
joints in its length, and bearing at its free end a 
belted horizontal sand-paper drum which is made to 
traverse every square inch of the upper surface of the 
piece, as a door, which it is intended to smooth. A 
similar jointed arm having free motion in a horizontal 
plane, and carrying an emery disk, would be very use- 
ful in drilling- machines, especially in boiler and bridge 
work where there is much drilling, reaming and coun- 
tersinking to do all over the surface of work of con- 
siderable surface. Such a machine could be run very 
well with either a flat belt or a cotton or Manila rope. 

The Double=Threaded Screw. An inventor came to 
me the other day with a machine in which he pro- 
posed, incidentally, to double the power of a screw 
by having it double- threaded ; and it took me longer 
than the job is worth to convince him that, instead of 
his doubling the power by doubling the thread, he 
really halved it. Reference to the accompanying 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 359 

illustration of a double square-threaded screw should 
make the matter clear. 

In any screw the pitch is the distance between 
centers of adjacent turns of the same thread, measured 
in a line parallel with the axis or center-line of the 
screw considered as a whole. Every time that the 
screw is turned once around in its nut, it will advance 
a distance equal to the pitch ; half a turn giving an 
advance of half the distance, and so on. If the nut 
is turned on the screw, one complete turn advances 
it the amount of the pitch. Conversely, if the pitch 
is very fast or steep, and the screw is pushed in the 




Fig. 218. — Double- Threaded Screw. 

nut or the nut pushed along the screw, advance of 
either, the distance of the pitch will cause one com- 
plete rotation of whichever one is free to turn. 

The gain in power by a screw is, without deducting 
for friction, proportionate to the ratio between the dis- 
tance that the power moves circumferentially or slight- 
ly spirally, and that through which the screw moves 
lengthwise. Thus if the screw has one-inch pitch, 
and a lever one foot long measured from the center line 
of the screw in a plane at right angles to the axis, and 
in a radial line in that plane, the theoretical gain in 
power (that is, the gain not allowing for the loss by 
friction) would be equal to 12 x 6.2428— f- 1 equals 



360 SHOP KINKS AND 

74.9136 ; since the power that turned the lever 
would pass through 74.9136 inches in making the 
screw advance one inch. 

If instead of having only one thread with a pitch of 
one inch there be two threads wrapped parallel with 
each other about the central cylinder of the screw, it 
is evident that, with the same width of screw-thread as 
with the single thread, the pitch will be doubled ; and 
that every turn of the screw by its attached lever will 
advance the screw (or its nut) two inches instead of 
one. While at first glance this may seem to be doub- 
ling the power, it is in reality halving it ; a force of 
one pound moving through the 74.9136 inches at the 
end of the lever will cause an advance of screw or nut 
of two inches, and thus increase the power only 74.9136 
-^ 2 equals 37.4568 times as a maximum ; friction 
having to be deducted in this case as in the last, 
although it will not be the same for a double- threaded 
screw as for one with but a single thread. 

If we wrap three parallel threads about the center or 
axis, the pitch will be three inches instead of one, and 
the power multiplied only 74.9136—^3 equals 24.9718 
times as a maximum. 

With a less pitch, say only one-half inch, a single 
thread with a twelve-inch lever will multiply the power 
74.9136^! equals 149.8272 times; with a double 
thread the same as the last the pitch would be one inch 
and the power multiplied 74.9136-^-1 equals 74.9136 
times as in the case of the single-threaded screw of one- 
inch pitch. In every case, no matter what the pitch, 
nor what the number of threads, the maximum mul- 
tiplication of power is equal to the distance that the 
power moves through in one turn, divided by the 
distance that the screw or nut advances in one turn. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 361 

It should be understood that the mere fact of hav- 
ing a twelve-inch lever will not cause the multipli- 
cation of the power unless the power is applied at the 
end of the lever. To apply the power at the middle 
of a twelve-inch lever would be practically having 
only a six- inch lever. 

Having a lever then twelve inches long but ap- 
plied in any other than a plane at right angles to the 
axis of the screw will not give the same results as 
where the lever lies in that plane. The actual lever 
is the shortest distance between the point where the 
power is applied and the axial line of the screw. 

Chimney=Clinibing. There should be a law against 
building any chimney or stack without climbing-irons 
either inside or out ; because it is not right to endan- 
ger men's lives whenever a trifling repair has to be 
made. 

The old-fashioned way of flying a kite over the 
chimney and trying to get the string to drop just 
right sometimes took several days. Next to that the 
ladder system is rather more certain, but unquestion- 
ably rough ; and then it demands fine weather, and is 
very dangerous. 

In Liverpool, England, the Alkali Co. had a big 
chimney which was successfully climbed by a rig got 
up by Brown & Porter of that city, and which I 
show as applied to a round and a square brick chim- 
ney ; however, the second form may be used for those 
of a hexagonal or octagonal section also. 

The staging shown in Figure 219 is three-sided 
and consists of an upper and a lower story connected 
at each corner by vertical clamps. At the left is seen 
a screw worked by the handle A, and serving to give 
a tight grip against the chimney ; the two corners of 



362 



SHOP KINKS AND 



the stage opposite this screw being hinged. Three 
rollers marked B are provided and set at an angle, 
one at each side of the three-sided staging. These bear 
against the chimney, and the one to the right can be 
turned around by a handle, worm and worm-wheel 
(7. Turning this roller causes the entire staging to 





Figs. 219 and 220. — Chimney-Climbers. (Brown & Porter.) 

climb the chimney spirally. If the shaft is cylindri- 
cal, no adjustment of the screw A need be made ; if 
it tapers, this screw will have to be gradually tight- 
ened as the stage ascends, in order to give the 
rollers enough grip. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 363 

Figure 220 has several advantages over Figure 
219, in that it can be adapted to any form of chimney, 
and it is more readily operated. There are two stout 
timber grippers which may be fastened to the chim- 
ney by two long bolts, one each side of the chimney. 
To these timber grippers are hung by four chains two 
smaller ones also capable of being bolted to the chim- 
ney ; and to these lower ones the stage is fastened. 
The lower and the upper grippers are also connected 
by two two-inch steel screws. The operation of climb- 
ing is as follows : suppose the upper grippers to be 
screwed fast and the lower ones to be loose, so that 
the stage weight will be held by the chains ; work- 
ing the screws, the stage is raised ; when it is high 
enough, the lower grippers are fastened by tighten- 
ing the bolts, thus taking the weight from the upper 
grippers. Then these may be raised still further by 
working the screws the reverse way ; when the 
chains are tight again, the upper grippers are fastened 
as before, and the lower ones released, and so on. 

Climbing a Chimney with Ladders. A long time ago 
an English firm built a chimney 320 feet high ; out- 
side diameter tapering from 1 7 feet 4 inches to 9 feet ; 
and forgot to put climbing irons on it. When it became 
necessary to put on a new copper lightning-conductor 
and to repair the chimney, the work was done by using 
fifteen ordinary light painters' ladders weighing from 
20 to 50 pounds, according to their length, and hav- 
ing an average width of n^ inches at bottom and 10 
at the top. Wooden distance-pieces were provided at 
the back of the ladders at the top to keep them off 
from the brickwork. The mounting was done by 
placing the first ladder at the base of the shaft, and 
driving a hooked wrought-iron dog or holdfast into 



364 



SHOP KINKS AND 



the brickwork, four feet from the bottom of the ladder; 
then a second iron dog was driven into the shaft about 
four feet down from the ladder-top ; and the ladder 
was lashed to these. The workman then 
climbed until he could reach about four 
feet above the first length, drove in another 
dog, to which he attached a pulley-block. 
One end of the pulley-rope was fastened 
half way down, a second ladder placed 
by the side of the first, and this second 
ladder hauled up by workmen at the 
base until it was half its height above the 
first ladder. It was then temporarily lash- 
ed to the first length ; the workman climbed 
up it and drove another holdfast into the 
bricks, four feet above the top of the second 
ladder, shifted the pulley-block to the upper 
holdfast, and descended ; then the second 
ladder was hoisted above the first one 
(which it overlapped two rounds) and its 
bottom lashed to the top of the first one. 
Then the climber mounted the second 
ladder (which was still held by the pulley- 
block and rope) and drove in a holdfast 
above, shifted the pulley-block, and pro- 
ceeded with the third ladder as with the sec- 
ond ; and so on. But when the under side 
Fig. 221. of the cap was reached there was trouble, 
Chimney* caused by a stone cornice projecting about 
with three feet from the face of the shaft. At this 
Ladders, point the ladder was fixed very firmly; 
another length was hauled up until its top was 
about five feet above the cornice, and this slanting 
length was lashed to the length below at its foot 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 



365 



at intermediate points, and also close underneath the 
cornice. When climbing this length the workman's 
back was towards the ground. The last ladder was 
hauled up and fixed above the cornice, reaching to 
the top of the chimney; and to the bottom of this the 
top of the slanting ladder was firmly lashed. It took 
five hours to do all this. 

Fire Buckets. It seems that in some shops even a 
system of fines will not prevent workmen from using 
the fire buckets for washing their hands, or for other 
purposes entirely unnecessary and forbidden. 

In the Newton shops that is not likely to occur, 
for they are all hung up and have conical bottoms, so 
that they could not be made to stand up without 
more trouble than even the most persistent would be 
apt to take in the matter. 

Elevator Stop. Haskins has a handy rig for stop- 
ping an elevator at any point whether going up or 




Fig. 222. — Stop Device for Elevator Ropes. 

coming down. As shown in Figure 222, it consists of 
two ropes c and <i, attached to a long rope /, extending 



366 SHOP KINKS AND 

to the bottom of the elevator well or to the first land- 
ing, and attached above the upper landing. When the 
elevator is started it occupies the position shown by 
letters a and b] but when it is desired to stop, 
pulling the rope e, the cords are brought into the 
position shown by c and d. 

As to Scrap= Heaps. It is the wisest man who 
profits by experience. Most experience that may be 
profited by is expensive to some one or other ; and 
this is the case whether it has been successful or un- 
successful. But as there is more unsuccessful than 
successful experience, it naturally follows that we 
may learn more from failures than from successes. 
The scrap-heap measures in great degree the quantity 
and kind of failures that take place, and there are 
many lessons which may be learned from it, as to 
how not to do things. If there are but two ways of 
doing a thing wrong we may probably find which 
one of them is the right one by the story of the 
wrong one as told in the scrap-heap. If there are 
thirteen wrong ways to one right one, we can still 
study the scrap-heap to find from one to thirteen of 
these wrong ways, and by induction we may find the 
fourteenth and right way. 

I remember that a number of years ago I was 
called in to report on the desirability of equipping a 
very large brick-yard with a certain class of brick- 
machines costing about $15,000 apiece. There was 
a number of molds in a horizontal rotating table and 
having false bottoms which rose and fell by the 
action of a circular inclined cam-table, thus compress- 
ing the clay that was filled into the molds and then 
pushing out the compressed block as a "green" brick 
ready to be carried away and hacked. Bach of these 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 367 

pistons or false bottoms had a wrought-iron stem with 
an anti-friction roller on the bottom ; and it seemed 
to me that these stems were always getting a bending 
stress which wonld not improve them in connection 
with the severe compressive strain thereon. I asked 
about this — if the machines were not troublesome 
from this cause, and was told that there was no diffi- 
culty whatever ; that they rose and fell without ever 
giving any bother or causing any expense for renew- 
als. I took this statement with a grain or so of salt, 
and took occasion to look into a large chest in the 
corner, which it did not seem to me was a necessary 
part of the equipment of a brick-yard. I found in it 
quite a supply of spare " stems," and also a very 
much larger supply of broken and bent ones, cracked 
rollers, scored steel face-plates from the cam- table, and 
so on. From this scrap-heap I got my cue. I was sure 
that the builders were lying ; and the only way to 
prove it was either to stay around and wait for a stem 
to break, or to find the scrap-heap. 

On another occasion I was commissioned to report 
as to the rock-drills for use in an important public 
work abroad ; and as I knew that in the United States 
work at Flood Rock (commonly called Hell Gate) 
there were examples of almost every kind of rock-drill 
used, I went there duly armed with a letter of intro- 
duction to the lieutenant in charge. Before present- 
ing it however, I cast my eyes about for the scrap- 
heap, knowing that there I would find the record of 
broken and worn out parts, and would then be rather 
better posted as to the wearing of tappets, slide-valves, 
etc., than I would be if I trusted to the statements of 
those interested — no matter how honest they might 
be. The result was that I found a certain number of 



368 SHOP KINKS AND 

tappets of one machine ; a certain number of slide- 
valves of another, and so on. What I saw very ma- 
terially aided me in questioning those who were using 
the drills in their actual work, and in making up the 
report to my foreign clients. 

I would say to every one who is either inventing or 
manufacturing any lines in which there are machines 
of other kinds at work — ' ' keep your eye on the scrap- 
heaps." The inventor wants to know what parts of 
his rival's give way, so as to be able to avoid falling 
into similar errors ; the manufacturer wants to know 
not only what parts of his rivals' machines are giving 
,way, but what parts of his own are defective. 

It does not, however, follow that the presence of a 
great number of pieces of a certain kind in a scrap- 
heap argues inefficiency on the part of the machine ; 
as it is often cheaper to throw away one part than to 
refit it or to furnish it with facilities for adjustment or 
repair. But if there is any one part which should go 
into the scrap-heap it should be some small, unimport- 
ant piece that is cheap to make and easy to put in place. 
Of two wearing parts, that one should be the one to 
go into the scrap-heap which costs the least to replace. 
Thus, if there should be no difference in the quality 
and hardness of metal between a slide-valve and the 
cylinder which forms the seat on which it plays, the 
slide should be the softer, so that it may get the wear; 
as to reface it or to replace will be cheaper than to do 
the same with the cylinder. 

The Language of Machines. Garner has been 
showing that brute animals, such as monkeys and 
others, have a language of their own by which they 
may communicate ideas to each other and by which 
he can in some cases impress ideas on them. There 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 369 

has long ago been shown to be a " language of 
flowers," but that is only figurative; of course, 
plants cannot tell one another what they want and 
think. But that machines have a language, there is 
no doubt ; any old mechanic can understand it. Al- 
though he cannot make machines understand what he 
means, he can readily understand what they mean. 

For instance, there is the screeching of belts. It 
takes a good mimic to imitate it, but almost any one 
recognizes it on first hearing. It means that they 
are oily, or that they are overloaded ; for each trouble 
they have a distinct cry, just as a child has separate 
cries for the thirst of fever and for a stubbed toe. 

Then there is the language of the engine ; it may 
mean that the main bearing is loose and the crank- 
shaft lifting at every stroke ; or that the piston-rod is 
loose in the crosshead, or that the piston-head is 
loose on the rod, or that there is water in the cylinder, 
or that the steam-pipe is on too sharp an angle and 
" kicks " every time that the engine cuts off sharply, 
or that the valves are wrongly set, or any one of a 
dozen things. 

Steam-pipes have really only two expressions. 
One is that to which I just referred, in connection 
with the steam-engine ; an expression that they have 
been laid out and put in wrong. The other is a very 
appropriate hiss for those who have allowed joints to 
leak and steam to escape. No one should submit to 
have this imputation on his thoroughness as a me- 
chanic continue to be hissed at. 

A line of shafting has a cry of pain which shows 
how the delicate skin of the journal and bearing is 
being rubbed away by the lack of oil. No compas- 
sionate shop-owner or foreman should allow that 



37o SHOP KINKS AND 

cry of pain to be heard very long in any one place. 

I conld go on and multiply instances of the lan- 
guage of machines and their appurtenances, just to 
point out that those who watch to hear them may 
learn much which will benefit them and those con- 
nected with them . ' ' None so deaf as those who 
will not hear " is an old saying and a true one. Some 
men go on day after day, hearing such noises and 
never paying any attention to them ; in fact they get 
deaf to them — and some day they regret it. 

Emergencies, About as good a subject as any 
other for a chat is that of emergencies. While it 
may not appeal just at the present moment to more 
than two per cent of my readers, the time will come 
when every one of them will probably remember 
with more or less thankfulness that at one time I 
called their attention to the desirability of being in 
time of peace prepared for war ; and to the advantage 
that a man has, who is ready for emergencies, over 
one who is only ready for every-day work and condi- 
tions. 

There are two principal classes of men who are 
never ready to meet any unexpected conditions or cir- 
cumstances — the incompetent kind and the kind that 
get ' ' rattled ' ' whether or not they have in them the 
knowledge that would bring them out of the hole. 
Those of the first kind are much more likely to get 
experience than those of the second kind are to get 
steady nerve ; but still, for all that, the first time 
that one has an engine run away with him, or gets 
caught by a fast-running shaft, or is confronted with 
the breakage of his best tool or the loss of his best 
help, difficulties do not seem to be quite so easily over- 
come as after about the twenty-first time ; and some 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 371 

of the bravest soldiers are said to have been quite 
overcome by fear the first time that they were under 
fire. 

There are in the country some establishments that 
have the reputation of being " big little shops, " be- 
cause of the size of the work that they turn out com- 
pared with the dimensions of the establishments or 
of the tools that they have in them. Such a concern 
used to be that of the Fletchers of New York City — who 
took the contracts for the noted Sound steamers ( 'Puri- 
tan' ' and ' 'Pilgrim, ' ' where some establishments about 
three times the size would not have dared attempt 
them. There are some shipyards in the country 
that I verily believe would undertake to dock a 500- 
foot vSt earner in a 300-foot dry-dock. They would 
manage it somehow, if they had to stand the boat on 
end or build a caisson all around one end of her, as a 
sort of bay window to the front of the dock. 

Perhaps, instead of my generalizing very much to 
start out with, it will be much more interesting to my 
readers to go into particulars and recall some jobs 
that have been done with inferior appliances. 

I remember once, when the dash-pots of an old 
side-frame Corliss engine were sent out to be re-bored 
and came back not bored down far enough, so that 
there was at the bottom of each pot a shoulder against 
which the plunger struck (I had only twenty-four 
hours to take the engine down, put in new piston- 
packing and new brasses all around, line up the whole 
engine and adjust the valves, and get it running 
again, and the shop was a good distance off), I 
chipped the bore out myself with what chisels I 
could find about the engine-room and got the machine 
turning over just about ten minutes before the mill 



372 SHOP KINKS AND 

had been absolutely sworn to start up. It was a 
cheeky piece of work to do, but it had to be done ; 
it was in February, which was a short month, and 
the product of the mill in stated quantities had to be 
shipped by vessel the first of the next month, and as 
there were from two to three days short in that month 
anyway, and there had been several stoppages before 
the day used for the repairs, it was a matter of having 
to get there some way or other. It was a case like 
that of the services which were announced to take 
place on the following Sunday ( ' in the morning, fine 
weather and Divine Providence permitting, and in the 
afternoon whether or no. " That flour had to be 
shipped whether or no, and the chisels removed the 
obstacle. 

One of the best examples of doing work with insuf- 
ficient appliances was seen at the Centennial in 
Philadelphia, where a young Russian engineer resid- 
ing in that city took a seventy-five ton cannon out of 
a boat with a fifty-ton crane — by raising only one 
end at a time, blocking it up, and then going to the 
other end, until the cannon was high enough up to 
be rolled off on the wharf. 

I have asked some of my friends to jot down for 
my readers' benefits some of their experiences in get- 
ting over one-hundred-foot streams with fifty-foot 
bridges, and their replies, given below, should prove 
as useful as they are interesting. 

My old friend, Wm. M. Henderson, a veteran 
engineer from the u Land o' Cakes " and one of the 
earliest and most competent designers of steam fire- 
engines and hydraulic machinery in this country, 
tells the following : 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 373 

' ' When I was one of the Government engineers in 
Chili, S. A., in charge of the building of stone 
bridges on the Valparaiso and Santiago R. R., being 
out on the line one day on a hand-car, my progress 
was stopped by a locomotive on the single line of road, 
about four miles out from Santiago. After waiting a 
reasonable time for the locomotive to back out of the 
way, I walked up to the engine, and found the en- 
gineer, a Mr. Ames, an American, under the engine, 
taking off the suspension-bar for operating the 
Stevenson link. As he got it off and handed it to 
me I saw it was blue at the joints. The pin was 
wrenched off. I remarked, ' That was caused by lack 
of oil. I wish you would back your engine on to 
the nearest siding to let me pass.' But the link had 
dropped into forward gear and he said it was impos- 
sible to back the engine, as he could not reverse. 
Now I was brought up in a locomotive-shop, and 
asked him if he would let me help him. He was 
only too glad, being on his beam ends. I procured 
a piece of rope out of the tool-box on the tender and 
looped up the link by taking a turn over the brass 
railing running around the engine, and when all was 
ready, told him to reverse the engine and give her 
steam. By standing on the platform and watching 
the movements, I manipulated the rope, slacking 
and tightening to accommodate the vibration of the 
eccentric-rod, and so allowed the engine to work 
backwards until we reached a siding about a quarter 
of a mile off, where I told him to draw his fire and 
bring the broken pin and plate with him, and I 
would take him into Santiago to the shops, where he 
could get it repaired. He seemed a little uneasy on 
the hand-car with me, a stripling whom he had never 



374 SHOP KIXKS AND 

seen before. At last he remarked : c You seem to 
know something about a locomotive!' 'Yes,' I 
replied, 'I served my time with James Edward Mc- 
Connell, the inventor of many improvements in loco- 
motive engines." 

Prof. John E. Sweet, formerly of Cornell University, 
and now at the head of the Straight Line Engine Co., 
is noted as one of the most fertile of American mechan- 
ical engineers in expedients ; in doing a fifty- ton job 
with twenty-five- ton appliances and the like ; but 
unfortunately for the community he is as modest as 
he is competent ; and while most generous with val- 
uable spoken advice in the hour of need, it is hard to 
draw him out for publication. But in addition to 
many valuable ' ' kinks " and " wrinkles ' ' already 
illustrated in this book, he gives this, much to our 
profit : 

' ' At the Centennial there was exhibited a foot-lathe 
built by the students at Cornell. 

"Not having a lathe large enough to either turn the 
pattern or casting, makeshifts were resorted to. The 
casting was made as large wheels commonly are, by 
sweeping up the rim and coring out the inside. The 
center hole in the casting was drilled under the drill-press 
and hand reamed. A pin to fit was set up in the bed 
of the planing-machine, the tool-holder served to hold 
and feed the tool, and student labor rotated the casting ; 
the result was as good as any." 

Mr. George E. Fowler, to whom the atmosphere of 
the machine-shop and designing-room has been famil- 
iar for more years than one would think to look at 
him, and to whom railway inventors naturally turn 
when, to use a homely phrase, they have bitten off 
more than they can chew, gives an item of his earliest 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 375 

experience in getting ont of a hole by a ladder built 
of ' ' gray matter. ' ' 

( ' Once we were driving the shop night and day to 
get a job out on time. I had for night service a smart 
engineer whom I could not discharge because forsooth 
he occupied the relationship of nephew to four of the 
directors in the company. I left the shop one night 
about nine o'clock and my last words were, " Now 
don't meddle with the engine." I was just dropping 
off into a doze when there was a sharp rap on my door 
and the night foreman informed me that the engine 
had broken down. Of course I dressed hurriedly and 
rushed off to the shop, which I reached just in time to 
head off the men who had washed up and were 
leaving. 

' ' The eccentric- strap was broken . At first visions of 
moving the valve by hand came to me, but my eye 
caught sight of an old wood chuck. Sending a man 
after a wood- turner, I hauled over a lot of the wood 
chucks until I found one about the diameter of my 
eccentric. This I clamped into position, fastened the 
rod to it, set the valve and started up. Plenty of 
grease, a stop once an hour to tighten the strap bolts 
and reset the valve, kept the shop running up to speed 
till morning. Meanwhile the wood-turner had made 
a pair of straps out of some dry maple. These were 
thoroughly saturated with hot tallow, and before the 
day shift started to work were put in position and the 
valve set. By tightening the bolts slightly once or 
twice a day and drawing up the eccentric- rod till the 
valve-stem trammed all right, we used those wooden 
straps till a pattern could be made, castings procured 
and new straps fitted. I think we lost half an hour's 
time, and the engineer lost his job because he thought 



376 SHOP KINKS AND 

the eccentric-straps needed tightening jnst a ' leetle.' " 

Mr. F. J. Masten, a veteran mechanic, contributes 
the following, in which the practical and the drily 
humorous are truly blent : — 

' ' While I was a journeyman machinist at the De- 
fiance Machine Works, a pulley about five feet by 
twenty inches, with its shaft, was brought in for repairs. 
The pulley had been held on the shaft by two feath- 
ers quartering. (No, they were not feathers, for they 
had not been sunken into the shaft ; but were projec- 
tions of solid metal, and perhaps might be called pro- 
cesses.) These projections had been produced by 
cutting away the metal between, on a planer, and 
this plan was devised to avoid marring the shaft by 
key ways or feather-sockets. The shaft and its pro- 
cesses were all right, but the pulley had become loose, 
and had been run so, until the bridge between the 
two slots was entirely cut away, leaving but half the 
bore of the pulley. 

' ' The Turnbull Wagon Works were shut down and 
several hundred men were idle from want of that pul- 
ley. It would take nearly a week to make a new 
one, and the problem was : Can the old pulley be 
made to serve longer, and be ready in place within 
eighteen hours ? 

' ' A heavy wrought-iron band was shrunk on each 
end of the hub ; then the space between the two pro- 
jections was considered as a keyway, a corresponding 
recess was cut in the hub of the pulley, and the key, a 
huge affair, was concaved to fit the form of the shaft. 

" It was not a handsome job when done, but it 
served the purpose well, and Mr. Turnbull was per- 
fectly satisfied when he started his works, after the 
loss of but one full day. 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 377 

c< To be complete in all its parts, an emergency job 
needs a dramatic element in the form of a hero. 

' ' The true heroism in this case was displayed by Mr. 
Charles Seymour, who was then Superintendent 
of the Defiance Machine Works. When the job was 
first presented, it was looked over by Mr. Seymour, 
the foreman, and me ; and, according to military 
precedent, the oue of lowest rank was asked first 
for his opinion. I took a little time to consider, and 
then said : ' Why not use the two projections on 
the shaft for the two walls of a key way, and let the 
half bore of the pulley that is good serve to hold the 
pulley true on the shaft ? ' ' You are right, Mr. 
Masten, ' said Mr. Seymour, ' in that way we shall 
get all there is of it. ' 

1 ' Here was true manly independence and executive 
ability in a Superintendent. 

" Then, soon after the work was started, Mr. Turn- 
bull, and the President of the Machine Company, 
Mr. Kettenring, came along and manifested some 
surprise that it was thought possible to use the old 
pulley. c Yes, ' said Mr. Seymour, ( Mr. Masten 
has suggested an idea that will enable us to make a 
good job with the old pulley ! ' 

' ' Such heroism is seldom seen in Superintendents ! ' ' 

Invention in an Emergency. The following ac- 
count is from Mr. D. L. Lyon, formerly Secretary of 
J. A. Fay & Co., Cincinnati, a concern that has done 
much to extend the fame of American mechanics for 
performing impossibilities, and to set the pace to 
rivals at home and abroad : 

' ' Any one who has made any study of wheel 
machinery is aware that the throat of a spoke, which 
is the part above the tenon that is driven into the 



378 SHOP KINKS AND 

hub, was formerly made on a single spoke-throat- 
ing machine, where one side was cut out at a time. 
In large shops they had two of these single spoke- 
throat ers, one being right-hand and the other left-hand. 
One operator would throat the spoke on one side, and 
if the works were very large there would be another 
man at the other machine and he would throat it on 
the opposite side. The throating had to be done very 
carefully, because the corners were liable to be broken 
off if the man fed the spoke over the heads with a 
jerky motion. At one of the wheel-shops here in the 
city some man had got up an attachment for making 
a peculiar shape of throat on his single spoke-throat- 
ing machine. He called his machine a double throat- 
er, because it really did double work. That is to say, 
when any one required a throat of this shape they were 
not compelled to take the spoke to another machine 
after it had been throated. 

u Shortly after this double throater had been 
brought out one of our customers asked if we could 
furnish one. We replied that we could, and took his 
order for one with a complete outfit. After part of the 
machines were completed he inquired how the new 
double throater was coming on. We replied that we 
were making some progress ; then he explained that he 
expected it to throat both sides of the spoke at once ; in 
other words, cut both top and bottom of the spoke 
at once as it was fed through between two heads. 
We replied that nothing of this kind had been accom- 
plished in the past, and that we proposed to furnish 
a throater with an attachment similar to the one 
made here in Cincinnati by the man in one of the 
wheel shops referred to above. He said this would 
not do, and accordingly he took one of our old-style 



MACHINE SHOP CHAT. 379 

single throaters. This remark, however, suggested 
to Mr. Doane that he could possibly make a machine 
that would throat both sides of the spoke at once. 
He perfected a machine where the material was fed 
through by hand and the heads were hung above and 
below the spokes so that both throats were cut on the 
spoke at one handling and at one passage. Then he 
thought that it might be arranged so that the tenons 
could be cut at the same time with the throats. This 
was accomplished, and finally he thought that we 
might make a machine that would cut the tenons, 
the miters for patent Sarven spokes, and the throats 
on both sides at once and use a power feed. This 
was accomplished, and we made a machine which will 
tenon, miter and throat as high as 15,000 spokes a 
day, as compared with the old-fashioned single throat- 
er where one man could throat only 3,500, and where n 
separate tenoning-machine was used for the tenons and 
a separate mitering-machine for the miters." 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



Page. 
Accurate Drilling, ... 93 
Adjustable Center-gage, . . *159 
Cutters for Grooving, . . *J02 
Parallels for Planer-work, . *T4 
Reamer for Brass, . . . 6 2 
Reamer for Large Work, . . *6t 
Reamer for Small Work, . *61 
vs. Standard Reamers, . . 60 
Adjustability, Too Much . .3.1 
Adjustment, Fine, for Surface- 
gage, * 142 

Adjustment-nuts, . . . *235 
Adjustment of Slide-rest, . . *53 
Air-blasts, Conduits for . . . ISO 
Air, Compressed, for Tapping and 

Reaming in Boiler-shops, . 136 
Alcohol, Absolute .... 354 
Aligning Engine-lathes, ... 25 
Alignment-gage for Lathe, *24 

Alkali Co., *361 

" All in One Piece, " . . . 229 
Almond. T. R. . . . *7S, *103 
American and Morse Tapers, . . 96 
American Practicality, . . 342 

Anchoring Beams to Rocks, . *253 

Angle-gages for Lathe-tools, . . 3S 

Annealing, 209 

Crane-chains 2S6 

Steel in an Open Fire, . 2 1 1 

Annunciator, Electric . . . 345 
Anti-rust Compound for Bright 

Work 204 

Apron-pivot Wear, Taking up . 66 

Arbor-centers, Preserving . . *23 
Arbor, Circular-saw, Bearings for 329 

Nut *237 

Arbors, Drift for . . . . *263 
Armstrong Tool-holder, . . *47 
Arrangement, Common Sense in . *272 
Atlantic Works, . . . *82, *S9 
Atmospheric Pressure, . . 257 
Axial Reaming, . , . . *.10 
Axle, Key-seating while in the 
Lathe 53 

Babbitted Holes, Distance between 157 
Backing off Milling-cutters, . . *26 
Bad Work, Loss in Correcting . 251 

Basrgy Cores, 195 

Balance, Running .... *30o 
Standing .... *305 



Page. 
Balancing Pulleys .... *305 
Baldwin Locomotive Works, 

64. 135, 136,*13S, 179, 27S, 279 
Ball-and-socket Bearings, . . 332 

Ball Bearings 331 

Ball-handle Drilling-fixture . *36 

Balls, Iron or Steel, Grinding . 121 

Solid Iron, Casting . . 199 

Truly Round .... 122 
Bar. Boring 82 

Caliper, 143 

Bars. Steel, Cutting, . . .349 

Turning Large . . . *34 

Barrels, Sweeping up Loam Cores 

on 193 

Bath, Hardening .... 205 
Beads, Forming in Molds, . *1S3 
Beam Calipers, .... 144 

Hodgkinson . . . *234 
Beams, 292 

Anchoring to Rocks, . *258 

Bearings, Ball-and-socket . 832 

Ball 331 

Cast-iron 330 

Cool-running . . . 329 

for Circular-saw Arbor, . . 329 

of Hoisting-blocks, . , 276 

Bearing-metals 329 

Bearings, Self-oiling . . . 329 

Troublesome . . . .329 
Bell Chucks, .... *23 

Belt-handler *313 

Belt-shifter, . . . . *312 

Belt- width Needed, . . .252 
Belts, Planer, Why they do not 

last long *312 

Bement & Miles, . . 94,140,265 
Bending Copper Pipes, . . 134 

Cranks on Shafts, . . .151 
Bett. ring: Calipers, • • • 145 

Bevel Filing *167 

Bilgram, Hugo, . 93, *110, 266, *322 

Bill Hi;ch, *2S9 

Bit, Rose, for Reaming in Two 

Metals at once, . . . *80 
Black-lead (see Graphite). 
Blackwall Hitch, .... *2S7 
Blanks, Spur-gear . . . 821 

Tap, Over-hard ... 209 
Blazing off Springs, . . .207 

Blocks, Bearings of . 276 



382 



INDEX. 



Page. 
Block, Driving . . . *262 

Blocks, Erection .... *265 
Blower, Simple Rotary . . *357 

Blue-prints of Solid Objects, . 226 

Bluing Steel without Heal, . 210 

Bobs, Plumb .... *259 302 
Boiler-calking Tools, . . * 1 37 

Boiler-heads, Flanged . .136 

Bollinckx, A. . . 146, 182,193, 265 
Bolts. Brass. Turning . .43 

Clamp, Breaking of . . *37 
Boring and Reaming in Two Metals 

at once, .... *30 

Boring and Threading, . *47 

Boring-bar, S3 

for Drill-press, . . . *8l 

Standards, S3 

" Botchman's Favorite " Lathe 

and Work-centers, . . *20 

Boxes, Core .... *1S4 

Shafting, Chucking . . 39 

Boring Cannons, .... 73 

Curved Nozzles, . . .40 

Cylinders, ...... 7S 

Holes in a Cored Casting, . *73 

Holes in the Lathe, ... 53 
Long Deep Holes, . . .80 

Tapers, *55 

Tapers in the Lsthe, . . *23 

Tapers, Slide-rest for . . *56 

Brace Principle, .... 230 

Bracket, Scaffold, Ladder . *267 

Brake, Combined Belt-Shifter and *314 

Brass, Adjustable Reamer for, . 62 

Bolts, Turning ... 43 

Cups, Covers on 239 

Brasses, Driving-box . . 260 

Brass, Reaming .... *62 

Work, Spring Lathe-chuck for *29 

Brazing Cast-iron, . . . 350 

Breakages of Cast-iron Columns, . 233 

Break-downs, .... 373 

Breaking of Clamp-bolts, . . *37 

off, Nicking for . . . .56 

Brick-machines, .... 366 

Briggs, Robert ." . . .39 

Bright Work, Anti-n st Compound 

for 204 

Brigley, John *H8 

Broach for Cast-iron, . . *149 

Broaching, .... *148, 149 

Brown, H. S . . . . *51 *235 
Brown & Porter, . . . *361 
Brown & Sharpe, *9, 36, 47, *9S, 104, 
156, 215, 220,249, 322, *343, 345, *355 
Buckets. Fire .... 365 

Buildings, Floor-timbers in High . 292 
Bunter-chucks for Planers, . . *68 
Bunter-screw, . . *69 

Bureau of Weights and Measures, 257 
Burning together a Core-tube, . 192 



Page. 
Bursting Emery-wheels, . . .117 
Bushings, Connecting-rod . . 260 

Punch 125 

Busts, Enlarging Patterns for . *172 

Calculating Adjustment of Slide- 
rests *55 

Horse-power, .... 253 
Caliper, Bar .... 143 

Beam *144 



Calipers, Bettering 


145 


Caliper-joint, Compressing 


146 


Calking Boilers, .... 


*137 


Cambered Floors, 


*294 


Can, Shellac 


*175 


Cannons, Boring 


78 


Cans, Oil 


838 


Canvas Suction-hose, 


341 


Car-shops, New Wrinkles in 


296 


Card, Erasing 


*212 


Care of Surface-plates, 


141 


Cast-iron Bearings, . 


330 


Beam-sections, 


*233 


Brazing 


350 


Broach for .... 


*149 


Lathe-tools, .... 


43 


Plates, Planing 


72 


Casting, Boring Holes in a Cored 


*78 


Casting Flange-pipe, 


201 


Screw-threads, 


187 


Solid Iron Balls, 


199 


Straight-armed Pulleys, 


187 


Castings, Chilled 


201 


Feeding 


199 


Good, How to Get 


. 198 


Handling Large 


*277 


Malleable .... 


210 


Ring, Cooling-strains on 


199 


Weight of .... 


199 


Ceiling, Pattern-room . 


291 


Center-cutting Shears, . 


*137 


Center-drilling Device, 


*40 


Center-gages-(see Cages, Center). 




Center-holes for Lathe-work, 


49 


Center-reamers, .... 


*41 


Centering and Squaring up Connect- 


ing-rods, .... 


*50 


Centering-device, .... 


*42 


Centering-drill, .... 


*89 


Centering Lathe-work, . *19, *49, 52 


Centering-punch, 


*126 


Centers, Arbor 


*23 


Importance of 


230 


Lathe *16, *20 


Lathe, for Coned or Tubular 


Work 


*1S 


Lathe, for Cutting Off 


*18 


Lathe, Testing . 


23 


Milling, 


*16 


Work 


*20 


Chains, Crane, Annealing . 


286 



INDEX. 



383 



Page. 
Chains, Hoisting, . . . .276 

Chasers, *44 

Chilled Castings 201 

Rolls, Turning . . . * T5 

Chimney-climbing, . . . *361 

with Ladders, .... 363 

Chipping out Dash-pots, . . 371 

Choice of Molding-loam . . . 189 

Chuck, Lathe, Handy ... 25 

Spring, for Lathe . . *29 

Spur, for Wood-turning . *1S0 

Chucking Shafting-boxes, . . 39 

Chucks, Bell .... *23 

Bunter ::: i ; S 

Drill 85 

Planer 63 

Shaper 66 

Circular-saw Arbor. Ben rings for 329 
Clamp Belts, Breaking of . . *37 

Clamp, Sizing 16S 

Clamp-dog, Two-part . . . *31 
Clamping Flanges .... *S7 
Clamps, Finishing . . . *J68 
Clearance of Twist Drills, . . 93 
Clements, Frank .... *32 
Cleopatra's Needle, . . . 27S 

Cleveland Twist Drill Co., . 93 

Climbing Chimney with Ladders, *363 

Clove Hitch *2S3 

Clutch, 250 

Coal for Facing . . . .190 
Coarse-tooth Cutters, . . . 105 

Coast Survey 257 

Cocking Wing-flanges, . . 350 

Cock-work, Lathe-driver for . *33 
Collapsing Taps, . . *128, *129 
Collar Gages, Mandrel for 

Grinding .... *120 
Colors of Patterns and Core-prints 170 
Columns, Cast-iron Breakage of . 233 

Colvin, F. H 154 

Combined Belt-shifter and Brake *314 



Common-sense in Arrangement, 

Loose Pulley, . 
Commutators, Truing 
Compound Drill and Counter-sick 
Compressed Air for Tapping a; 

Reaming in Boiler-shops, 
Compressing Caliper-joint, 
Compression-hubs, . 
Conduits for Air-blasts, 
Cone-center Pivots, 
Coned or Tubular Work, . 
Connecting-rod Bushings, 
Connecting-rods, Centering and 

Squaring up . 
Connecting-rods, Planing 
Consumption of Supplies, . 
Converse, J. S. 
Convenient Lathe-driver for Core 

pipe and Cock-work, . 



*07 2 

*309 

160 

*41 

136 
146 

152 
ISO 
239 
*18 
260 

*50 

70 

248 

*16S 

*33 



Page. 
Corliss-engine Cylinders, . . 260 
Cool-running Bearings, . . 329 
Cooling-strains on Ring Castings, 199 
Cool Water for Shops, . . .293 

Core-boxes *184 

Hardening 195 

Core-oven Cars, . . . *197 

Doors, . . . . *196 

Shelves, .... 197 

Core-pipe, Lathe-driver for . . *33 

Core-prints, Colors of . . . 170 

Core-sand, 193 

Core-tube, Burning together . 192 
Core-tubes, Straightening . . 192 
Core-wheels, Emery-wheel Holder 

for *118 

Cores, Halves .... 192 
Loam, Sweeping up on Barrels 193 

Baggy ]95 

Core-oven . . . . *197 
Patterns for . . . . *199 

Venting 190 

Straw for 191 

Tortuous, Removing . . 193 
Coring Holes in Lugs, . . . 191 
"•Cornell" Solid Wrench, . . *153 

Corrugated Rolls 122 

Cost and Ten Per Cent. . . 244 

of Product 243 

Cotton-seed Oil for Blazing off 

Springs, 207 

Cotters, Split 152 

Couch, A. B *213 

Counterbalancing Shafts while 

Turning them .... 55 

Countersink and Drill, . . *41 

Couplings, Hose . . . .187 

Hose, False-back ... 182 

Shaft, Barbarous . . .304 

Covers on Brass Cups, . . 239 

Crane-motors 279 

Cranes and their Kin, . . 273 

Electric 278 

Elevating: Weights beyond 

their Capacity, . . . 372 

Temporary .... *289 

Wrinkle about .... *279 

Crank-pin for Center-crank Engine 240 

Cranks, Bending on Shafts . 151 

Cresson, G. V 197 

Crosby, A. L *42 

Crossheads, Removing Piston-rods 

from 261 

Crucibles, Graphite ... 189 
Cube, Turning in a Lathe . . 57 
Cup-leathers, .... 341 

Curve-joining, *222 

Curves of Long Radius, . . *221 

Cut vs. Cast Gears 316 

' vs. Wire Nails, . . . 242 
Cutting Gear-wheels on a Slotter, 76 



3«4 



INDEX. 



Cutters, Coarse- tooth 

for Grooving . 

Gear . 
Cutters, Hardening 

Milling 

Milling, Backing off 



Page. 
. 105 
. *102 
. 313 
208 
. 107 
*26 
Milling, for Heavy Work . 104 
Milling, Holding ... 109 
Milling, Keeping- Sharp . . 112 
Milling, Speed of . . . 113 
Milling, Spiral Grooves in . *106 
of Nut-milling Machines, Gage 
for -... 118 

Twist, 177 

Cuts, to Mill in the Rim of a 

Wheel, 109 

Cutting Internal Gears on a 

Planer 76 

off, Lathe-center for . . '*18 

off Small Pieces, . . . *125 
Rails to Length, . . .124 
Small Diameter Steel, . . 124 
Cutting-speed on Lathes, . . 9 
of Lathe-tools ... 50 

Cutting Steel Bars 349 

Teeth in Large Quadrants, . *97 
Threads in a Lathe,. . . 131 
Cylinder-head Patterns, Lugs for 171 
Cylinder-jackets, Making . . 181 
Cylinders, Boring ... 78 

Corliss-engine .... 265 
Cylindrical Nuts .... 234 

Dash-pots, Chipping out . . 371 

Deforming Dies in Hardening, . 208 

Defiance Machine Works, . . 376 
Delamater Works, . 51, *126, *285 

Depth-gage for Wood-turning, . 179 

Design, Simplicity of . . . 227 

Engine, Simplicity in . . 228 

Designing "Wrong End to," . 230 
Diametral vs. Circular Pitch of 

Gears 315 

Dickson Mfg. Co., ... 41 

Die-sinking, .... 351 

Dies, Deforming in Hardening . 208 

for Screw-threading . . 131 

Pipe 131 

Differential-screw Lock-nut, . *238 

Dimensions of Gear-teeth, . . 3i7 

Direct Separator Co., . . . *28 

Discharge, Water .... 252 

Disconnecting a Piston-rod, . 261 
Dish-faced Rose Bit for Reaming 

True Holes in Two Metals, . *80 

Disposing of Turnings, . . 64 

Distance between Babbitted Holes, 157 
Distinguishing Jigs and Special 

Tools 158 

Doane, W. H 377 

Doctor, Two-part ... 35 



Page. 

Dogs, Scaffold *267 

Doors, Core-oven . . . . * 1 96 

Draftsmen, Handy for . . . *212 

Draftsmen's Templates, . . 211 

Drawings for the Shop, . . .*2l7 

Large, Holding on a Board . 215 

Keep Track of . . . .218 

Small, Section-lining . . *214 

Drift for Arbors *263 

Drill and Countersink, . . *41 

Centering *S9 

Drill-chucks 85 

Drill-press Arm, Increasing Span of *83 

Drill-press, Boring-bar Guide-box for *81 

Facing Large Work in . . *86 

Heads 84 

Drill Speed 98 

Starting *89 

Twist, for Sheet Brass . . *90 

Drilling, Accurate ... 93 

Drilling-device, . . . . "40 

for Handles . . . . *87 

Drilling Fixture, Ball-handle . . *86 

Holes in Water-mains while 

they are full *95 

in Glass, 91 

Jigs, 158 

Long Holes, .... 92 

Square Holes, .... 96 
Drills, Electric, in Boiler-work . 134 
for Working Hardened Steel . 91 
Hardening .... 206 

Long 94 

Long, Oiling .... 94 

Rock 867 

Splicing 92 

Twist, Clearance of 93 

Driver, Lathe *32 

Drivers for Lathe, *30 

Locomotive, Equalizing . . 241 

Driving-block *262 

Driving-box Brasses, . . . 260 
Driving Keys, .... 150 
Driving-pins, Securing . . . *31 
Driving Work held in Lathe-bear- 
ings, 82 

Drop-forging, . . . .851 

Duplicates, Ordering ... 343 

Dust-flues, 119 

Dynamo, 856 

Eccentric-strap, Broken . . 375 

Economy, F"alse .... 161 

Electric Annunciator, . . . 345 

Cranes, . . . . . 2; 8 

Drills in Boiler-work, . . 184 

Electromotive Force, . . . 856 

Elevator-stop, 365 

Emergencies, .... 370 

Emergency, Invention in an . . 877 



INDEX. 



385 



Page. 
Emery-wheel Holders for Car- 
wheels, *118 

Emery-wheels, .... 207 
Bursting . • . . .117 

Making 119 

vs. Grindstones, . . . 116 

E lgine-lathes. Aligning . . 25 
Eigines, Steam (see Steam-engines). 
English, H. .... 46 

Enlarging Patterns for Busts &c.,*172 
Square Holes in Cast-iron, . *149 
Equal Concentric Rings, . . *224 
Equalizing Locomotive Drivers, . 241 
Erasing-card. ..... *212 

Erecting a Perpendicular with a 

Two-foot Rule, . . .225 
Erection-blocks . . . *265 

Etching on Steel 349 

Eye, Splicing Wire Rope for an . *289 

Face-plates, Securing Driving-pins 

to . . . *3l 
Facing Large Work in the Drill- 
press, *86 

Facing-lathes, .... 13 
Facing-tools for Worms, . .119 

False-back Hose-coupling, . . 182 
False Economy in File-buying . 161 
Teeth for Spur Gears, . . 324 
Fastening Hoisting-ropes to Hooks, *2S7 
Fay & Co., . ... 377 

Feed-Rage for Lathes, . . 39 

Feed-screws of Lathes, . . .12 

Feed, Sight 340 

Feeding Castings, . . . 199 

Heavy Planks to a Saw, . 176 

Ferracute Machine Works. 

13, 158, 170,-173, 211, 213, 215 
Fiber, Vulcanized, Turning . . 53 
Figure, Human, Templates rf . 231 

Figurer, The 252 

Figuring Gear-teeth, . . 327 

File-buying 161 

File-sharpening, . . 162 

Sand-blast for . 162 

File-tangs, . 166 

Files, Life of 165 

Pinning ..... 160 

Ruining 160 

Sectional . . . 163 

Filing, Bevel *167 

Fillet, Much-neglected. . 239 
Filleting, . ... 173 
Filling Drafting-pens 2 1 2 

Finding the Center of Gravity, . 257 
Fine Adjustment for Surface-gage, *142 
Fine Taper Reaming, ... 60 
Finish vs. Material, . . . 168 
Finishing-clamps, .... *16S 
Finishing Leaf Springs by Grinding, 123 
Fire-buckets 3 5 





Page. 


Fire-engine Test, 


. . 46 


Fires, Hollow . 


. 181 


Fits, Hydraulic . 


265 


Fits, Scraping, for Steam-engine 


Valves . 


348 


Flange-joints, Grinding 


. 350 


Flanges, Clamping 


*37 


Flanging Boiler-heads, 


. 136 


Fletcher & Co., . 


. . 371 


Flexible Metal Oil-tube, 


. *108 


Floors and Joists, 


293 


Cambered . 


. *294 


Light . . 


295 


Shop . 


. 295 


Strengthening 


. *294 


Flute-spacing, . 


. Ill 


Flutes. Spiral, in Milling 


cutters *106 


Fluting or Grooving Taps, . . 130 


Fluting with the Lathe, 


. . 50 


Flv-wheel Molding, 


. . . *184 


Fly-wheels, . 


. . *169 


Foot-steps, Turbine, to Prevent 


from Welding 


.336 


Forming Beads in Molds 


, . . *188 


Foundations for Turbine 


s. . . 336 


Fowler, Geo. L. 


. 374 


Freeland Works, . 


. 35, *86 


Frictionless Taps, . 


. 130 


Fudging, 


169 


Furnace, Portable Brass 


. 198 



Gage, Alignment, for Lathe . *24 

Gage-blocks, Planer ... 75 

Gage Depth, for Wood-turning . 179 

Feed, for Lathe ... 39 

for Cutters of Nut-milling 

Machines, .... 113 
for Turning Tapers, . . *42 

Limit 156 

Limit, Harrington's . . *157 

Shrinkage .... *263 
Gages, Angle, for Lathe-tools, . 38 
Center, Adjustable . . *159 
Center, Wrinkle in . . . *159 
Collar, Mandrel for Grinding *120 

Ring 209 

Screw-thread .... *148 

Standard Grinding . . 120 

Gaining with a Saw, . . . 124 

Gasket-cutting, .... 351 

Gear-cutters 318 

Gear, Spur, Blanks for . . 321 
Gear-tooth, Outlines for General 

Adoption .... 319 

Scriber *213 

Gear-wheels. Cutting on a Slotter 76 

Gearing, Rules for Laying out . 328 

Transmission bv . . . 315 

Gears, Cast-iron, Grinding together 325 

Cut vs. Cast .... 316 

Diametral vs. Circular Pitch of 315 



3 86 



INDEX. 



Sage, 
Gears, Internal, Cutting on a Planer Tt> 

Overloaded ... 317 

Rawhide 

Special 

Spur. False Teeth for 
General Dimension Sheet, . 
Glass, Drilling in 
Globe-valve** in Pipe-lines . 
Good Alignment-gage for a Lathe 
Graphical Proportion, . 
Graphite, . . .261,281,286 

Black-lead .... 

Crucibles . . ... 

Gravity, Finding the Center of 
Green-sand Molds, Venting 
Grinder, Lathe vs. . . . 
Grinding Cast-iron Gears together 

Flange-joints, 

Iron or Steel Balls 

Lathe-center Spindles . 
Grinding-mandrel tor Collar Gages, *12 

for Plug Gages, . . *120 

Grinding Standard Gages, . . *120 

Tools without Changing their 
Shape, .... 

Grindstone, 

Grindstones, Emery-wheels vs. 

Gripping T Square, 

Grooving, Adjustable Cutter for 

Taps, 

Griison H 

Guide-box for Boring-bar for Dri 

press, .... 
Gum Joints (see Joints, Rubber). 
Gun-metal, 



Hack-saws, 124 

Hack-saw Lubricant, . . 125 

Halved Cores, .... 192 

Hammer Interchangeable . 154 

Hammers, Steam, as Steam-con 

sumers . . . . .179 
Hammering Pentagons, . . 181 
Hanco- k Inspirator Co., *29, 60, *129 

Hand holes 84 

Handle-drilling Device, . . *S7 

Handling Large Castings, . . *277 

Handy Eccentric Vise, . . *34 

for Draftsmen, . . . *2 2 

Lathe-chuck, ... 25 

Triangles, . . .215 

Hanging up a Clutch Pulley, . *308 

Hardening around a Hole, . . 209 

Cutters, 208 

Drills . ... . -206 

in Mercurv, . . • • 91 

Small Saws, . . 208 

Tool Steel. . . . 207 

Hardening-bath 205 

Hardness vs. Toughness, . . 204 
Harrington & Sons, . . *63, *119 



o-,'<) 

3.9 
324 
23 1 
91 
133 
*24 
231 
353 
341 
1 B9 
257 
189 
115 
825 
350 
121 
*13 



*119 
114 
116 
213 

*102 
1H0 
201 



*81 

324 



Page. 
Harrington's Limit-gage, . . *157 
Hartford Steam Engineering Co.. *263 
Hay and Straw for Core , . 191 

Heating-bath, .... 205 

Henderson, W. M. . . . 372 
Hewes & Phillips, .... 67 

Hitch. Bill *2S9 

Blackwall .... *287 

Clove .... *283 

Timber .... *283 

Hodgkinson Beam, . . . *234 

Hoe & Co., U 

"Hog-cuts" on Long bhafis, . , 38 
Hoisting-chains, .... 276 
Hoisting-ropes, . . . 276, 286 
Hoisting, Temporary . . *283 
Holding Large Drawings on a 

Board, .... 215 

Milling-cutters . . .109 

Reamers while Marking them, *63 
Things in Place, . . 240 

Wortc on a Planer-bed . . 66 

Hole, Hardening around a . .209 
Holes, Boring Long Deep . - 80 

Boring in a Cored Casting . *78 
Coring in Lugs . . . 191 
Reamed "Just a Trifle too 

Small, 1 ' 63 

Square, Drilling . 96 

Hollow Fires, . . .181 

Planing, . 71 

Hooks, Fastening Hoisting-ropes 

to *287 

Horse-power, Calculating . . 253 

of Steam-engines, . . 254 

Rules for .... -254 

Hose, Canvas Suction . . .341 

Hose-couplings, . . . 187 

F.dse-back . . .182 

Howard, Geo. C. ... 83 

Hubs, Compression . . 152 

Hydraulic Fits, .... 265 

Ram, . . - . .261 

Hyperbolograpl:, . . . 214 

Importance of Centers, . . 230 
Inch, Thousandth of an . . . 147 
Increasing the Span of a Drill- 
Press Arm, . . . *83 
Industrial Works (see Bement & 

Miles Co.) 

Ingenuity vs. Common-sense, . 230 

Inserted-tooth Milling-cutters, . *98 

Inspector's Truck, . . . *343 

Interchangeable Hammer, . .154 

Pulley-molding, . . . *183 

Invention in an Emergency, . . 377 

Iron, White or Silver, To Soften 211 

Iron-work, Painting . . . 204 

Jackets, Cylinder, Making . . 181 



INDEX. 



387 



Jack-shaft Stands, 

Jigs. Distinguishing- 
Drilling 

Joining Curves, . 

Joint, Caliper, Comprtssir.g 
Riveted .... 

Joints, Lead-pipe 

Rubber .... 

Joists and Floors, 



299 

158 

158 

*222 

146 

*136 

♦133 

353 

293 



K.eeping Account of Shop Work, 247 

Milling-cutters Sharp, . .112 

1 rack of Drawings, . . 218 

Keying Pulleys on shafts. . . *310 

Key-seating a Shaft or Axle while 

in the Lathe, . . . 53 

Key-tapers and Sizes. . . 151 

Keys, Driving .... 150 

Milling out ... *149 

Projecting .... 150 

Split 150 

Removing 151 

Ladder Scaffold-bracket, . . *267 
Ladders, Climbing Chimney with *363 
Lane & Bodley Co 39, 1S4 



Language of Machines, . 




:- 68 


Lap-plates, . 

Laps, 




350 
*121 


Lashing Derrick-timbers, 




*2Sl 


Lathe as Rotary Shears, 




58 


Boring Tapers in . 




*23 


Cutiing-speed , 




9 


Cutting Threads in 




131 


Feed-gage for 




39 


Fluting- with . 




50 


Poor Old . 




9 


Setting Parallel 




26 


Turning a Cube in 




57 


Various Uses of 




58 


vs. Grinder, 




115 


Work-drivers for . 




*30 


Lathe-bearings, Driving Work in . 


32 


Lathe-center for Coned or lubula 




Work, . 




*18 


for Cutting off, . 




*18 


for Heavy Work, 


*16 


, *17 


Grinder, 




*14 


Spindles. 




•18 


Lathe-centers, . 


. * 6 


, *20 


Testing, 




23 


Lathe-chuck, Handy . 




25 


Spring, 




*29 


Lathe-driver, 




*32 


for Core-pipe and Cock Work, 


*33 


Lathe Feed-screws, 




9 


Lathe-speed Regulator, . 




*9 


Lathe-springs, finishing 


by Grind 




ing 




lay 


Lathe-tools, Angle-gage 


:or . 


38 


Cast-iron 




42 



Page. 

Lathe- tools, Cutting-speed of . 50 

Lathe-work, Center-holes for . *49 
Centering . . . *)9, 50, 52 



Lathes, Engine, Aligning 

Facing 

Tool-post Slots for . 
Laying off Gear-teeth for a Sprock- 
et-wheel 

Leading Shafts .... 
Lead-pipe Joints, . . . . : 
Lead-screw for Pit Plant r . 

Lubrication, .... 

Wear, 

Leathers, Cup . . . 

Black-lead in ... 



320 
298 
133 
66 
13 
12 
341 
341 
*20 
165 



Leland and Faulconer Co. 
Life of Files; ' . 

Light Floors. 295 

Lighting, Shop . . . 296, 297 



Limit-gage, 

for Worm-threads, 
Lines, Plumb-bob 
Lining up Shafting, 
Lists, Tool 
Loam Cores, Sweeping 

Barrels. . . . 
Lock Nuts, 

Lockwood Mfg. Co., . 
Locomotive, Reversing 

Broken Down, 
London, Btrry & Orton, 
Long Drills, 
Loose Pulleys, Craft's, 
Loss in Correcting Bad Work. 
Lubricant for Hack-saws, . 

for Milling-cutters. . 
Lubricants, . 
Lubrication, 

for Lead-screws, 
Lubricator for Turret-tool 
Lugs, Coring Holes in 

for Cylinder-head Patterns, 
Lyons, D. L., 

Machine-beds, Setting on Planers, 
Machine-steel Milling-cutters, . 
Machine, Tenoning Spoke-throat- 

ers, 

Machines, Brick .... 

Language of 

Special 

Machinery, Wheel .... 
Making an Emery-wheel, . 
Malleable Castings, . 
Mandrel for Grinding Collar Gages, : 

Grinding, for Plug Gages, . : 
Man-holes, .... 

Marking Steel Tools, 

Masten, F. J 

Material, Finish vs. ... 



156 
5=157 

250 
1=300 

343 

193 
150 



156 

94 

*309 

251 

125 

109 

339 

337 

13 

64 

191 

171 



104 

377 
366 
368 
357 
377 
119 
210 
= 120 
120 
64-. 
354 
376 
168 



388 



INDEX. 



Page. 
Measuring Pulley and Shaft Diam- 



eters 


156 


Measuring Screw-threads, 


*U7 


Meatyard, E. B. . . 


*136 


Melting-Pointsof the Metals, 


200 


Mennig & Co., .... 


66 


Mercury, Hardening in . 


91 


Weight of ... . 


257 


Metal-finishing Machine Wanted 


358 


Metal, Gun 


324 


Metals. Bearing, 


329 


Melting-points of the 


200 


Metric-pitch Screws, 


57 


Metric System, .... 


147 


Miller, F. J. ... 


*8l9 


Milling-center, .... 


*16 


Milling Cuts in the Rim of a Wheel, 109 


Milling-cutters, 


107 


Backing off 


*26 


for Heavy Work, 


104 


Holding, .... 


109 


Inserted-tooth, 


. *98 


Keeping Sharp, 


112 


Lubricant for, 


109 


Machine-steel, .... 


104 


Speed of, .... 


112 


Milling-machines 


113 


Oil on, 


*107 


Milling Out Keys, .... 


*149 


Spirals, 


111 


Milling vs. Planing. 


no 


Molding Fly-wheels, . 


*1S4 


Molding-loam. Choice of 


189 


Molding. Pulleys, 


*183 


Moldmg-sand, Renewing 


190 


Molds, Forming Beads in . 


*188 


Green-sand, Venting 


1S9 


Monitor-lathe Tools. . 


47 


Monkey-wrench as a Pipe-wrench, 


*132 


as a Tube-cutter, 


153 


Monkey-wrenches and Pipe-tongs 


132 


Morse & American Tapers. 


96 


Morris, Tasker & Co., 


39 


Motors, Crane 


. 279 



Nails, Cut vs. Wire . . . 242 

Needle, Cleopatra's . . . 278 
Newton, C. C, . . .*125, 365 

Machine-tool Works, . 104, *106 
Nickine Stock for Breaking off, . 56 
Nordyke & Marmon Co., . . 316 
Nozzles. Curved, Boring, . . 46 

Nut-arbor *237 

Nut, Lock, Differential Screw, *238 

StuH, . . . . . *235 
Nut-milling Machines, Gage for . 113 
Nuts, Adjustment, . . . 235 

Cylindrical, . . . .234 

Lock 150 

Nuts, to Keep from Working 

Loose, .... *422 



Page. 
Object, Showing all Sides of an . 218 

Oil-cans, 33S 

Oil Floods of, 340 

on Milling-machmee, . 107 

Oil-saving, ... . 337 

on Railways .... 337 

Oil-tanks, 340 

Oil tube. Flexible Metal. . . *10S 
Oiling Long Drills, . . . . 94 

Pins from One End Only, *339 
Open-side Planers, .... 6.t 
Ordering Duplicates, . . . 343 
Oven, Core, Cars for . . . *197 

Core, Shelves for, . .197 

Over-accuracy, .... 77 
Over-hard Tap-blanks, . . . 209 
Overloaded Gears, . . .317 

Overtime Work, .... 250 

¥*acking up Work on a Planer, . *73 

Pads, Sketching 216 

Paint for Iron Stacks, . . . 204 

Painting Iron Stacks, . . *202 

Iron- work, .... 204 

Parallels, Adjustable, for Planer- 
work, ...... *74 

Pattern-finishing, .... *171 

Pattern-maker's Device, . . *]74 
Pattern-making, . . . .173 

Pattern-room Ceiling, . . .291 
Patterns, Colors of, 170 

for Cores 199 

Enlarging, . . . * 1 72 

Payler, J. W. . . . 145, *214 
Pennsylvania Railway, . . . 215 
Pens, Drafting, Filling, . . 212 
Pentagons, Hammering . . .181 
Perpendicular,Erecting with a Two- 
foot Rule, .... 225 

Piat, A 19S 

Pieces. Screwing together, . . 266 
Warped, Straightening . . 209 
Steel, Working Lines on . 210 

Pinning of Files lfiO 

Pins, Oiling from One End Only, *339 
Pipe, Flange, Casting . . . 201 

Dies 131 

Pine-fittting, *132 

Pipe-wrench, Monkey-wrench as 132 
Pipes. Copper, Bending . . 134 
Piston-rod, Disconnecting . . 261 
Lock-nut for .... *238 
Piston-rods, Removing from Cross- 
heads 261 

Pistons, Solid vs. Spring . . 241 
Pitch, Diametral vs. Circular, of 

Gears 315 

of Screw *359 

Pit-planer, Lead-screw . . . 66 

Pits, Wheel, 334 

Pivots. Cone-center, .... 239 



INDEX. 



389 



Internal 



Page. 
Gears 

76 



Not 



1=312 

67 



Saw 



*322 
7U 
71 

. 179 
71 

, 72 
110 

, 176 
72 

*135 



Planer, Cutting 
on a, 

Gage-blocks, 

Packing up Work on. 

Pit, Lead-screw, . 
Planers, Open-side 

Quick-return 

betting Machine-beds on 
Planer-beds, Holding Work on 
Planer-belt Shifter, 
Planer-belts, Why They Do 

Last Long, 
Planer-chucks, 
Planer-tables, Supplementary. . 67 
Planer-work, Adjustable Parallels 

for, *74 

Planine, 71 

Bevel-gear Teeth, . 

Connecting-rods, 

Dead Straight, 

Gummy Timber, . 

Hollow, 

Large Cast-iron Plates, 

Milling vs. 
Planks, Feeding Heavy, to 
Plates, Large Cast-iron, Planin 
Plate-work, Reaming Holes in 
Plumbago (see Graphite). 
Plumb-bob Lines, .... 260 

Tips 260 

Plumb-bobs, 
Point, Vanishing, 
Polishing and Sizing-clamp, 
Pond Works, . 
Poole, J. Morton, . 
Portable Brass Furnace, . 
Power of a Screw, . 
Practicality, American 
Pratt & Whitney, 

♦44,60,94,121. 
Preserving Arbor-centers, . 
Pressure, Atmospheric, . 

on Safety-valves, 
Principle. Brace 
Prints, Blue, of Solid Objects 
Product, Cost of . . . 
Projecting Keys, 
Proportion, Graphical . 
Proportions of Gear-teeth, 
Pyribil & Co., 
Pulley, Common-sense, Loose 

Hanging up a Clutch, . 
Pulleys, Craft's Loose 

Holding . 

Keying on Shafts, 

Straight-aimed, Casting 

Split .... 
Pulley-balancing, . 
Pulley-dinmeters, Measuring 
Pulley-molding. Interchangeable *183 
Pumping Gritty Water, . . 341 



14 



*259, 302 

. 222 
. *16S 

. 25 
*45, 115 

. 198 
. *359 

. 342 

, 247, 322 
. *23 

. 257 

*255 
. 230 

. 226 
. 243 

. 150 
. *231 

. 318 
*23, 178 

*309 
. *808 

*309 
. 153 

*310 
. 187 

. 311 
. *805 

. 156 



Pump-valves 

Punch-bushings, . 
Punch. Centering, . 
Punches, Spiral, .... 
Pusey & Jones, 

Quadrants, Cutting Teeth 

Large 

Quick-return Planers, . 



Page. 

. 341 

125 

126 

•126 

. 46 



*97 
65 



Railway, Pennsylvania . . 215 
Railways, Oil-saving on . . . 337 
Ram. Hydraulic . . . .261 

Rammer-eyes, 153 

Rawhide Gears, .... 326 
Reamed Holes, "J ust a Trifle too 

Small," 63 

Reamer, Adjustable, for Brass, . 62 
Adjustable, for Large Work, . *61 
Adjustable, for Small Work, *61 

Center *41 

Rose-bit . • . . . . 41 
Screw, for Boiler-work, . *136 
Screw, for Plate-work, . *136 

Starting *58 

Stepped *59 

Reamers, Holding while Marking, *63 
Standard vs. Adjustable . 60 
Reaming and Boring in Two Metals 

at Once, *80 

Axial *110 

Brass *62 

Fine Taper .... 60 

Holes in Plate-work, . . *135 

Reckoning Tapers, . . . 354 

Regrinding Rolls . ... 121 

Removing Keys, .... 151 

Piston rods from Cross-heads, 261 

Tortuous Co-es, . . .193 

Renewing Molding-sand, . . 190 

Repair-work, True . . .159 

Rest, S ide, Adjustment . . . *55 

Swivel, for Taper-boring, . *56 

Rests, Slide 86 

Steady *86 

Tool 35 

Revolver-lathe 1 ools, ... 47 
Riehle Bros., . . *81, *33, *97 

Bros. T. M. Co *34 

RiehK-'s *S6 

Rigging 275 

Ring Gages 2( 9 

Rings, Equal Concentric, . . *224 
Riveted Joint, .... *136 

R.ck-dnlls 367 

Rolls, Chilled, Turning, . . . *45 
Corrugated .... 122 
Cutting to Length, . . . 124 
Regrinding .... 121 
Rubber, Truing . . . .53 



39Q 



INDEX. 



Pa°e. 
Rope for Hoisting, . . . 276 

Wire, Splicing for an Eye, *2S9 
Ropes, Hoisting, .... 286 

Hoisting, Fastening to Hooks, *287 
Rose-bit for Reaming in Two 

Metals, *80 

Reamer, . . . .41 

Rotary Shears, Lathe as . 58 

Rubber Gaskets, To Cut, . . 351 

Joints, 353 

Rolls, Centering, . . .53 
Ruining Files, .... 160 

Rules for Horse-power, . . . 254 

for Laying out Gearing, . 328 
Running Balance, . . . *3l>5 

Safety-valves, Pressure on . . 255 
Sand Blast for File-sharpening, . 162 

Core i93 

Molding, Renewing . . 190 

Saving Oil 337 

Saw as a Machine-tool, . . 123 

Gainingwith a . . . . 124 

Saws, Hack U'4 

Small, Hardening . . . 208 
Scales, Position for . . . *272 

Scaffold-dogs *267 

Schellenbeck, Peter . . . *87 

Scrap-heaps, 366 

Scraping Fits for Steam engine 

Valves 348 

Screw, Bunter *69 

Double-threaded, Power . *359 

Lead, for Pit-planer, . . .66 
Reamer for Boiler-work, . *136 
Reamer for Plate-work, . . * 136 
Screwing Pieces together, . . 266 
Screws, Metric-pitch ... 57 

Set 152. 153 

Slot-headed, Starting . . 153 
Screw-thread Gages, . . *148 

Screw-threads, Casting . . " 187 
Measuring .... *147 
Screw-threading, Dies for . . 131 
Scriber, Gear-tooth . . . *2l3 

Seavey, H. A 119 

Sectional Files, . ... 163 

Section-lining Small Drawings, *214 

Sections. Beam, Cast-iron . *233 

Securing- Brick Veneers, . . *290 

Driving-pins to Face-plates . *3l 

Self-oiling Bearings, . . . 3^9 

Sellers & Co. . . . 330, 341 

Sense, Common, vs. Ingenuity. . 2*0 

Set-screws, .... 152, J53 

Setting a Lathe Parallel. . . .26 

Machine-beds on Planers, . *69 

Shaft-couplings, Barbarous . . 304 

Shaft, Jack, Stands for . . . 299 

Key-seating in the Lathe, . . 53 

Shapley and his . . . . 298 



Shaft-diameters. Measuring. 
Shafting -boxes, Chucking . 
Shafting, Lining up . 

Straightening . 

Turning .... 
Shafts, Bending Cranks on 

Counterbalancing, while 
ing . . . .-. 

Keying Pulleys on 

Leading .... 

Long, Hog-cuts on 

Straightening . 

Turning .... 
Shaper-chucks, 
Shapley and his Shaft, 
Sharpening Files, . 
Shears, Center-cutting 

Lathe as Rotary 
5; heet, General Dimensii n 
Shellac-can, 
Shellac, Testing 
Shellenback, P. 
Shelves for Core-oven, 
Shifter, Belt, 
Shop HToors 

Lighting, .... 

Lights 

Windows. 

Work. Keeping Acc< unt of 
Shops, Car, New Wrinkle in 

Cool Water for 
Showing all Sides of an Object, 
Shrinkage-gage, 
Sibley College, 
Sight Feed, 
Simplicity in Design, 

in Engine Design, 
Sizes, Key 
Sizing-clamp, 
Sketching-pads, 
Slender Twist Moldings 
Slide-rest, Adjustment 
Slide-rests, . 
Slots, Tool-post 
Slotter, Cutting Gear-wheels on 
Smith and Coventry, 

Smith, Oberlin 

(See also Ferracute Works.) 
Solid vs. Spring Pistons, 

Wrenches, .... 
Spacing of Teeth and Flutes. . 
Special Gears, .... 

Machines 

Speed, Cutting, of Lathe-tools, . 

of Drills 

of Milling-cutters, . 
Spindles. Lathe center, Grinding 
Spiral Flutes in Milling-cutters, . 
Spiral-groove Milling-cutters, 
Spiral Punches, .... 
Spirals, Milling .... 



Page. 

156 

39 

*300 

*262 

35 

. 151 




55 
1=310 

29S 

38 

348 

53 

68 

298 

162 

1=37 

58 

231 

•- 1 75 

354 

*8fi 

197 

"3l2 

295 

296 

297 

297 

247 

296 

298 

21S 

*263 

25S 

340 

x-27 

228 

151 

"168 

216 

176 

55 

36 

39 

76 

*38 

231 

241 
M53 

111 
*319 

357 
50 
93 

112 

*13 
i ; 106 
M06 
!T26 

111 



INDEX. 



39i 



Page. 

Splicing Drills 92 

Wire Rope for an Eye, . *289 

Split Cotters, 152 

Keys, 150 

Pulleys, 311 

Spring Lathe-chuck for Brass Work, *29 

Springs, Blazing off 207 

Cotton-seed Oil for Blazing off . 207 

Spur-chuck for Wood-turning, . *1S0 

Spur-gear Blanks 321 

Square, T., Gripping . . . 213 
Squares, Steel, Improving . . 155 
Squaring up Connecting-rods, . *50 
Stacks, Paint for Iron . . . 204 
Parting Iron .... *202 

Stagings, *269 

Standard Boring-bars, ... 83 
Reamers vs. Adjustable, . . 60 

Tapers *354 

Tool Co " . . 146 

Standing Balance *3'35 

Stands, Jack-shaft .... 299 

Starting-drill *89 

Starting reamer, .... *58 
Starting Slot-headed Screws, . . 153 
Steady-rest for Tapering Work, . *36 
Steam-engines, Horse-power of . 254 
Crank-pin for . . . 240 
Steam Fire-engine Test, . . .46 
Hammers as Steam Consumers, 179 
Steel, Annealing, in an Open Fire, .211 
Bluing, without Heat, . . 210 
Cutting Small Diameter, . . 124 
Etching on ... 349 
Hardened, Drills for Working . 91 
Squares, Improving . .155 
Temperature-gage for . . 210 
Tempering, by Gas . . 206 
Tool, Hardening . . .207 
Tools, Marking . . . 354 
Stencils. Making, without Cutting- 
tools 350 

Stepped Reamer for Tapers, . *59 
Steps, Foot, Turbine, To Prevent 

from Welding .... 336 
Turbine, Anti-friction . . *333 

Stiff Slide-rests, 36 

Straight-edges, Tapering . . 150 
Straightening Core-tubes, . . 192 

Shafting, *262 

Shafts, 34S 

Taps 130 

Warped Pieces, .... 209 
Straight Line Engine Co., 196,*197, *339 
Strap. Eccentric, Broken . . . 375 

Straw for Cores 191 

Strengthening Floors, . . *294 
Strength of Gear-teeth, . . 317 

Stud-nut *235 

Suction-hose, Canvas . . . 341 
Sun-prints from Tracings, . . 225 



Page. 

Suplee, H. H 156 

Supplementary Planer-tables, . . 67 
Supplies, Consumption of . . 248 
Surface-gage, Fine Adjustment . 142 
Surface-plates, Care of . . . 141 

True 139 

Survey, Coast 257 

Sweeping up Loam Cores on Barrelsl93 

Sweet, J. E. . *126, 153, *258, *340, 374 

Swivel Planer-tables, ... 67 

Rest for Boring Tapers, . . *56 

Supplementary Planer-table . 67 

Tool-holders, . . . .38 

System, Three-point . . . 222 

Table, Planer, Swivel . . . 67 
Tables, Planer, Supplementary . 67 

Tacks, Thumb 216 

Taking uo Apron-pivot Wear . 66 

i Tanks, Oil . . ■ . . .340 

'Tapering Straight-edges". . 150 

Work, Steady-rest for . . *36 

Taper, "Jarno" .... *353 

Oscillating Valves . . . 240 

Reaming, Fine . . . .60 

Tapers 96 

Boring *55 

Boring, in a Lathe . . . *23 
Gage for Turning . . . *42 

Key 151 

Reckoning ..... 354 

Standard *354 

Stepped Reamer for . . . *59 

Swivel-rest for Boring . . *56 

Taps, Collapsing . . *123, *129 

Fluting 130 

Frictional 130 

Straightening . . . .130 
Why They Break, . . 127 
Teeth, Cutting, in Large Quadrants, *97 
False, for Spur-gears, . . 324 
Gear, Dimensions of . . . 317 
Gear, Figuring . . . 327 
Gear, Laying off for a Sprocket- 
wheel 320 

Gear, Proportions of . . 318 

Gear, Strength of 317 

Gear, Testing . . . . 327 . 

Planing Bevel-gear . . *322 

Temperature-gage for Steel, . 210 

Tempering Steei by Gas, . . . 206 

Templates, Draftsmen's . . 211 

of the Human Figure, . . 231 

Temporary Cranes, . . . *230 

Hoisting, .... *283 

Tenoning-machine Spoke-throaters, 377 

Testing Gear-teeth, .... 327 

Lathe-centers, .... 23 

The Poor Old Lathe, . . 9 

Thousandth of an Inch, . . 147 

Threading and Boring, . . . *47 



392 



INDEX. 



Page. 
Threads, Cutting, in a Lathe, . 131 

Three-point System 222 

Three vs. Four Dies for Screw- 
threading, ... 131 

Thumb-tacks 216 

Timber, Gummy, Planing, . .179 

Hitch *283 

Timbers, Lashing Derrick . *281 
Tips, Plumb-bob .... 260 
Tool-holder, Armstrong . . . *47 
Tool-holders, Swivel ... 38 

Tool lists 343 

Tool, Monitor-lathe, . . .47 

Tool-points, Breaking, ... 50 
Tool-post Slots in Lathes, . . 39 

Tool-rests, , .... 35 
Tool, Turret-lathe . . . .47 
Turret, Lubricator for . . 64 
Tools for One Hand, . . . . 156 

Grinding *1J9 

Lathe, Angle-gage for . . 38 
Lathe, Cast-iron, ... 42 
Special. Distinguishing . . 158 
Steel, Marking . . .354 
Twisting of Long . . . 205 
Warping of Long, . . . 205 
Tooth and Flute Spacing, . . Ill 
Gear, Outlines for General Adop 



tion 

To Sofien White or Silver Iron 
Trammels, .... 
Transmission by Gearing, 
Triangles, Handy . 
Troublesome Bearings, 
Truck, Inspector's 
True Surface-plates, . 
Truing Commutators, . 

off Fly-wheels, 

Rubber Rolls, . 
Truly Round Balls, How to Make 
Tube. Core, Burning together 
Tube-cutter, Monkey-wrench as a 
Tubes, Core, Straightening 
Turbine Steps, Anti-friction 
Turbines, Foundati ns for 
Turning a Cube in a Lathe, 

Brass Bolts, 

Chilled Rolls, 

Large Bars, 

Shafting, 

Shafts, 

Tapers, Gage for 

Vulcanized Fiber, . 

Wood, Spur-chuck for 
Turnings. Disposing of . 
Turret-lathe Tool, 
Turret-tool Lubricator, . 
Twist-cutters, 
Twist-drill Clearance, . 
Twist Drills for Sheet Brass 
Twisting of Long Tools, 



319 
. 211 

2i4 

. 315 

215 

. 329 

*343 

. 139 

161 

*169 

53 

. 122 

192 

. 153 

192 

*333 

336 

. 57 

43 

. *45 

34 

. 35 

54 

*42 

53 

*180 

64 

. 47 

64 

. 177 

93 

, *90 

205 



Page. 
Twist-molding, Slender, Making . 176 
Two-part Clamp-dog, . . . *31 

Using Oil on Milling-machines, . *107 

"Valves, Globe, in Pipe-lines . 133 
Oscillating, Taper . . . 240 

Pump 341 

Scraping Fits for Steam-engine 348 
Vanishing-point, . . . 222 

Various Uses of the Lathe, . . 58 
Veneers, Securing Brick . . *290 
Venting Cores, . . . .190 

Green-sand Molds. . . 189 

Vise, Handy Eccentric . . . *34 
Vise-height, Best . . . . 166 

Vulcanized Fiber, Turning . . 53 

Wabbler, 33 

Ware, M 211 

Warping of Long Tools, . . 205 
Water, Cool, for Shops . . .298 
Water-discharge. . . . 252 

Water-mains, Drilling in while They 

are Full *95 

Water, Pumping Gritty . . 341 

Watts-Campbell Co. . . .111 
Wear, Taking up, on Apron-pivot 66 
Weight of Mercury, . . . 257 
Weights and Measures, Bureau of 257 

of Castings, .... 199 

Westinghouse, . . . .157 

Wheels, Emery .... 207 

Gear, Wrinkle about . . 315 

Wheel-machinery, ... 377 

Wheel-pits, 334 

Wheel, Sprocket, Laying off Gear- 
teeth for 320 

Wheels, Fly (see Fly-wheels). 

Wooden Core, . . . .326 
Whitworth, Sir Joseph ... 32 
Wilkinson, William. ... 90 

Windows. Shop .... 297 
Wing-flanges, Cocking . . . 350 
Wooden Core-boxes, . . . 195 

Core-wheels, .... 326 
Wood-turning, Depth, Gage for . 179 

Spur-chuck for . . *180 

Woods, S. A., Mch. Co., . . *81 
Work, Overtime .... 250 
Working Loose, To Keep Nuts from*242 
Working-lines on Steel Pieces, . 210 
Work-centers, .... *20 

Work-drivers for Lathe, . . . *30 
Work, Driving .... 32 
Works, Delamater . . . *235 

Ferracute . . 211, 213, 215 

Industrial (see Bement & Miles 
Co.). 
Worms, Facing-tool for . . 119 
Worm-threads, Limit-gage for . 157 



INDEX, 



393 



Page. 

Wrench. "Cornell" . . . *153 
Monkey, as a Tube-cuuer, . 158 
Monkey, for Pipe-work . . *132 

Wrenches, Monkey, and Pipe-tongs. 132 
Solid *153 



Wrinkle about Cranes, . *279 

about Gear-wheels, . . . 315 

in Center-gages, . . . *159 

New, in Car-shops, . . . 29(5 

Vale & Towne Mfg Co., . 91,288 



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